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(AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, this is what happens when you're too damn clever! Twenty-years ago, I wrote the first two chapters of CYCLE ONE -- each imply a malevolent force behind the creation/ distribution of the sports drink, but who was it? I never answered that question within the text of CYCLE ONE, but while I was writing the original KING REX series a few years later, I playfully connected the two universes, revealing that the secret ingredient in Cycle One was the mystical cum of the super-villain, King Rex. (Here I am twenty-years later trying to crawl out of the mess created by that decision! So, as you will see in the coming story, characters from both "franchises" populate these pages. You don't necessarily need to read both of those stories to understand this one, but... it's kind of fun, in a completest kind of way... (Let me know if you think I succeeded or not. Hope you enjoy!) ******************************************************************************************************* CYCLE ONE: FOUR BACKSTORIES ONE: There’s a mom&pop coffee shop in Ellicott City, MD, that the writer favors, not just for the view and the free wi-fi, but because it’s intimate and quiet -- he can sort his thoughts before he writes without worry of distraction. He leaves his little apartment, walks the steep downhill toward the Patapsco River, and spends his mornings writing at the coffee shop, enjoying the sunrise over the rushing water. He’s a big man, thick and solid -- not at all the build one would expect a writer to have -- but small compared to the bodybuilder that suddenly enters the shop, a very muscular man dressed in tight joggers and matching jacket over a t-shirt that fits him like spandex. The guy moves like he’s not used to the dimensions of his own muscular body. Awkward. The writer has seen this kind of thing before -- although, it’s been long enough that he’s surprised to see it again. It’s possible that the guy has never adjusted to the change, the growth, but that seems unlikely, not after nearly twenty years. This is too fresh. The bodybuilder spots the writer and a small, hopeful expression appears on his face. He crosses to the writer’s corner booth in a few heavy steps. “Sam Bennett?” he asks. The writer sighs and looks up, locking eyes with the bodybuilder. “Can I help you?” he asks. “I sure hope so,” the bodybuilder says. “My name is Ben Fortunato and I’m in desperate need of help.” He indicates the seat on the opposite side of the booth. “May I?” he asks. Sam nods and the big, Italian bodybuilder squeezes into the booth. “Mr. Fortunato…” “Ben.” “Ben... “ The writer draws a breath for strength. “What brings you by?” (He asks in a tone that implies he knows the answer already.) Ben pulls something out of his jacket pocket and sets it on the table between them. A crisp new bottle of CYCLE ONE, a magic potion disguised as a sports drink. There is a growing horror on Sam Bennett’s face as he stares at the bottle. “What the fuck?” he asks. “Are you kidding? Is that real?” He pushes it back toward Ben. “Jesus Christ, do you know what people would DO to you to get that? Put it away before someone sees it!” He looks around, paranoid -- nothing’s amiss, nobody else is even in the room, but it doesn’t stop his panic. “Put it the fuck away!” Ben is confused, but does as he’s told. “I just wanted to prove I was legit.” But Sam didn’t lose his intensity. “You realize people will fucking KILL you for that? You know that, right? There are some crazy motherfuckers out there, Ben -- addicts, all of them! And they will do anything for their drug of choice. Where the fuck did you find that? No, wait, don’t tell me -- I don’t want to know.” “I have a lot more than this one bottle.” Sam Bennett, the writer, takes another breath -- he likes to believe he’d be stronger than this, but it’s right there in the man’s pocket… Sam could just TAKE it… Why is he even entertaining the thought? It’s been nearly twenty years… Does he really still want it that badly…? “Ben,” he asks instead, “do you understand what addiction is?” Ben’s expression is unreadable. “Yeah, I’m getting a pretty good idea…” “Imagine you’re taking a drug that makes lifting better than sex, and sex better than anything. Imagine that you spend a good few years of your life getting other guys hooked on it, turning them into addicts, too. Imagine that you do that for pay -- good pay -- and INCREDIBLE bonuses! And the world is just one powerful playground ripe for the taking. “And then one day, the drug disappears -- it goes out of production, the magic formula is lost, whatever -- new stock isn’t being produced. What’s left is what’s left. “And people go fucking crazy! First, it’s the guys with money -- they try to stockpile it -- the would-be dealers and petty hoarders. There’s fights over it, attacks, takeovers -- guns are always blazing and bodies -- big, muscular bodies -- begin piling up. Gangs form -- safety in numbers, right? -- some become cults, worshipping the drug and the drug’s creator. They isolate, hiding with their horde, fighting to be the last guy with the last drop. It’s the Supply War -- it’s a dark time led by power-hungry addicts. “But there’s another type, too -- another kind of guy, fewer in number, of course. Guys who understand and accept that it’s addiction -- they form support groups specializing in this drug. And there they learn how to navigate their lives without it, without this incredible drug that makes lifting better than sex and sex better than anything. Without it, they don’t get pumps at the gym anymore -- so lifting loses its… magic. No pumps, no good workouts, so bodies… don’t remain in the same condition. They still keep most of the size, but they get softer, saggier. “And of course, sex loses its vibrancy. I mean, what’s the use? You don’t feel attractive, so you stop attracting and pretty soon self-gratification is your only option -- and you don’t feel much like pleasing yourself, either.” He sighs, looking far away. “I know you didn’t come all this way to hear that, Ben,” the writer says, re-establishing eye-contact, “but you should know there are no happy endings when it comes to CYCLE ONE.” Ben speaks quietly. “I’m really sorry,” he says sincerely. “It wasn’t my intent to trigger you. I just wanted to have a conversation with someone who understands and can help me.” The writer does something mildly out of character and lays his hand on Ben’s arm. “Ben, I can connect you with several support groups…” Ben almost laughs. “It’s not that,” he says. “Honestly, I don’t care if I never drink another drop of this shit again! Isn’t that funny? As a kid, I dreamed of having a body like this -- getting a body like this by drinking a magic potion, in fact -- super-hero shit -- and now my life is one big fucking nightmare. No, the problem isn’t with me -- it’s my brother, Glenn. I mean, you wanna talk about addicts…? He’s been on a two-week binge…” Sam Bennett cocks his head curiously. “Two weeks…? How much CYCLE ONE do you have?” They make eye contact and Ben speaks quietly. “About twelve-hundred cases,” he says, waiting for a reaction like he’s revealed a poker hand. But Sam Bennett is silent, immovable -- stunned. “What the fuck..?” he finally whispers. “Do you have any idea how much danger you’re in?” Ben shakes his head -- he’s being misunderstood. “It’s not me, so much, it’s my brother. I need to know how to stop him from drinking it -- like, separating him from it, you know? I just… he’s not listening…” “No, I mean your life is in danger! There are people who will kill you for the bottle you have hidden in your pocket, much less a case!” He forces himself to a whisper again. “And you have a THOUSAND cases!” He shakes his head in disbelief. “You have clearly stumbled across someone’s stash and it’s only a matter of time before they come looking for it -- or for you. This is like mafia-shit, Ben -- I’m totally serious! And just by talking to me, you’re risking my life, too!” There’s a moment when Ben considers continuing this conversation, but then realizes there’s nothing to gain in it. He sighs and stands. “I’m really sorry to have bothered you,” he says, offering his hand. “Thank you for talking to me.” They shake and Sam partially rises. “I’m sorry, too,” he says. “I don’t mean to be so… well, it threw me to see the stuff again… I hope you understand. But I still hope you take my words to heart.” “I will,” Ben says. “There is someone I can connect you with,” Sam says. “He can probably offer a solution for your brother, but, um… I wouldn’t tell him about the stash. I wouldn’t trust him.” Ben nods. “Thank you.” And just as Ben is about to leave the coffee shop into the warm, morning sunshine of Ellicott City, Sam calls him back. “You know, Ben,” he says, swallowing his guilt, “on second thought, I will take that bottle.” Knowingly, Ben nods, smiling slightly in support. The writer doesn’t make eye contact with him, looking shamefully at the floor, broken by his confession, his own addiction. Ben places the bottle on the table and leaves -- he doesn’t see how long it takes for Sam Bennett to touch it. Imagine, lecturing Ben Fortunato on addiction -- or warning an Italian about the mafia! Jesus God, ridiculous! Still, Sam Bennett is right about one thing: there are no happy endings with CYCLE ONE. *********************************************************************************** TWO: “Welcome, brother,” the nearly naked bodybuilder says, wrapping Ben in a hug in the doorway of the church. “I’m glad you’re here.” For Ben, who’s never considered himself gay, this connection is a little too intimate, but there’s a strange masculine pleasure brewing, too. (He can’t help but remember what he and his brother had done when he first…) Fucking CYCLE ONE… “Thank you for meeting me,” Ben says, trying gently to pull away -- the bodybuilder doesn’t just let him. Instead, the moment becomes awkward -- especially when Ben can feel the nearly naked bodybuilder start to get hard in his tiny little thong, pressing against the inside of Ben’s hip. Worse, Ben can feel his own dick start to respond. “The pleasure’s all mine,” the bodybuilder says. “You smell fresh.” Ben breaks the hug and steps back. “Excuse me?” “It’s still in your system, the Cycle One,” the bodybuilder says. “You’ve had it so recently, I can smell it. I’d consider it an honor if you let me have your cum.” Ben is shocked -- speechless. The bodybuilder smiles, adjusting his hooded cape back across his shoulders, slitted open in the front to reveal his pouch. “It’s a sacrament, not sex,” he says. “You ARE new! Come inside and let’s talk -- welcome to the Brotherhood of Rex, the last remaining sect.” He leads Ben into the large, airy cathedral. “I’m Father John J,” the bodybuilder says warmly. “I’ve been the leader of this sect since our Lord plunged into the Multiverse.” They enter the sanctuary, Ben notes the lack of pews and such, just soft matting on lounge chairs set up to face the Altar, a towel on the back of each seat -- the place smells immaculately clean and fresh. He sees that there are superheroes on the stained glass, not religious figures, but he doesn’t have much time to process that as they come upon the altar. Ben swears it’s merely a California King-Size Bed with a black spandex/neoprene fitted sheet, but in this atmosphere, it feels more important. At the head of the bed -- of the altar -- stands a marble statue of a hugely muscled, hyper-masculine god -- an ancient greek statue given a 21st century physique. He’s a handsome man, with strong features and a build that would seem impossible if Ben hadn’t seen what he’s so recently seen. Ridiculously wide shoulders sloping to the tiniest of waists then exploding out again in a sweep of thigh. But that’s if you could NOT get distracted by the statue’s overladen balls and fantasy cock, erect and gently bending up. It’s so lifelike, it’s as if Father John J had poured white paint over a live model who’s eight feet tall and just standing there frozen -- it’s disconcerting. Father John J genuflects before the statue and speaks, looking only at the statue’s face. “This is our Lord and Creator,” he says reverently. “The Living God now lost in the Multiverse, King Rex. I am honored to be among the first he transformed -- I even aided him in the acquisition of Superion, His Majesty’s consort and husband. Pardon my prideful bragging, but there’s a reason I am where I am, and I sincerely doubt you’ve read my resume.” Ben legit smiles -- strange as all this is, he still maintains his humor -- it helps diffuse the anxiety. “No, I haven’t. The truth is I was sent here by Sam Bennett.” “Sam Bennett?” asks Father John J. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a few years. How’s… um… how’s Sam?” “He seems well,” Ben says, shrugging. “I mean, he was a little surprised to see me and warned me extensively about continuing this journey -- he made it all sound very mafia.” Father John J nods understandingly. “His perspective has always featured a little paranoia -- it’s one of the things that makes his fiction so good. Come, let’s go to my office where we can talk a little more comfortably.” HIs office is surprisingly simple for a religious leader, fairly modern and standard but for another… altar in the back -- this looks more queen-sized than the altar in the sanctuary, same sheeting, though. Father John J directs him to the sitting area by the window and Ben takes one of two comfortable chairs. Father John J removes his cape, draping it across the altar and, dressed only in his golden thong and slippers, takes the other chair. Ben is still awed by the Father’s body, the impossible made flesh. (Nearly as big as his brother…) “I’m sorry,” the Father says. “I’ve been rude. Would you like something to drink? Coffee, water… Cycle One?” Father John J smiles in a teasing way. Ben snorts and unconsciously crosses his arms. “No, thank you,” he says, forcing a smile. “I appreciate you meeting me on such short notice -- time is… important.” Father John J nods. “Tell me what brings you here, Ben.” Ben is thoughtful for a moment, as if he’s debating whether to confess at all, much less to what extent. “You’re safe here,” Father John J says. “You’re Catholic, right? Let’s consider this confessional.” He leans back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head and inadvertently flexing his abs -- not many priests do that. “Thank you,” Ben says, still not at ease, but he sighs audibly and starts his monologue. “My brother and I… purchased a storage lot, three connected units. It was a blind buy, so we had no idea what we were getting, just someone’s abandoned junk, we assumed. It turned out to be a stash of Cycle One. And someone had clearly been living there, guarding it -- hell, one whole unit was a gym for this poor guy, and the next was the living quarters. “So we find this stash of Cycle One -- there’s something… familiar about it in the back of my mind, but I can’t remember what, and my brother drinks one like they haven’t been sitting there twenty years! I mean, like, who the fuck knows what’s really in the bottles and have the preseratives turned to poison or has there been some kind of freaky fermentive process? I mean, he’s fuckin’ CRAZY!” Father John J is thoughtful, curious. He gently asks, “How many bottles were there?” Fortunately, Ben is not so far gone that he doesn’t recognize the ploys of priests -- he WAS an altar boy, after all. He’s deceptive. “Let’s just say, quite a few,” he says, which doesn’t satisfy the Father, but it will have to do. “And he starts exercising, you know, playing around on the gym equipment, feeling all energetic and silly. I immediately blame the Cycle One -- so does he. And he starts slugging them down like it’s a frat party and he’s arrived late. “Because of some… bungling on my part, I ended up getting locked outside with my brother trapped inside and I had to run home to get the tools necessary to free him! It was an incredibly stressful few hours, but I did take the time to do some internet research on Cycle One -- that was how I connected it with King Rex. “I was fifteen, sixteen at the time that all went down, when all the superheroes suddenly became hypermasculine homosexuals -- I had no idea it was connected to Cycle One!” The Father smiles. “The cum of our Lord and Creator, the Living God lost in the Multiverse.” Ben is quiet again, lost in his own thoughts. The Father prods him. “Is your brother still trapped?” “Hmm?” Ben says, coming back to the moment. “No, not anymore. Not by accident.” Father John J tilts his head like an interested dog. “So, I went back. I got tools and I went back to free him. I’d only been gone, like, five, five-and-a-half hours -- it was crazy. I had no idea what Cycle One could do! I mean, I’m trying to free him and from inside he suddenly… rips the sliding door from its track and destroys it and… he’s HUGE! I mean, bigger than you and you’re fucking HUGE!” The Father can’t help but run a hand over his massive torso, and neither of them miss the twitch of his dick. “And he’s dressed the same way as you, in barely nothing, and he’s roaring and flexing and his cock is hard and um… I trip back over a piece of cinderblock and whap my head against the wall and pass out.” He smiles. “Glamorous.” The Father is wise enough to know that he shouldn’t interrupt, but he does offer a comforting smile. “When I wake up, I don’t know how much time has passed, but I discover my brother has chained me to one of the pallets…” “‘ONE of’...?” “Yeah,” Ben says, unthinking, lost in his own story. “And in order to get to the keys, I’d have to be strong enough to drag it across the room.” He swallows. “Only one way to do that.” There is another awkward silence as Ben gathers the strength to continue. “And as if that weren’t enough, he literally sealed me in, cemented the wall with old cinderblocks -- real Edgar Allen Poe shit, you know? He’s crazy, right? I mean… I had to… drink or die. Worse, he’s FILMING the fucking moment, too! So I get to have my humiliation digitally preserved forever. I was so fucking pissed…” The Father reaches over and puts his hand on Ben’s knee. They make eye-contact briefly. “You don’t have to tell me…” “I do,” Ben says. “I need you to know why I need your help.” He places his hand on top of the Father’s -- Father John J adjusts so they can hold hands. Ben is near tears. “You know what the stuff is like,” Ben says quietly. “The way it makes you feel -- the power and the masculine explosion of strength and desire and will. At first, it feels like it’s churning there in your balls, forcing the creation of testosterone, linking sexuality with the spirit, the cock and the muscle. God, I’ve hardly talked about it, because I’m trying so hard not to want it again -- because it’s fucking incredible, that feeling! That like… righteous anger that fills you with the belief… that you’ve gained power -- that you’re somebody!” Even Ben can’t help his cock’s reaction, that twitch of desire -- or memory. “And you feel like you can do anything, like even drag a heavily laden pallet across a cement floor. And if you fail, you just slug back another bottle of the magic potion until it amplifies everything all over again -- but especially the emotion, the masculine connection. It’s like coke, or meth, like that -- this… false sense of power. “Pushing the pallet was easier than pulling it -- it was like hitting sleds at high school football practice -- and the pallet scraped its way slowly across the floor. Each inch it moved was a triumph for me -- I swear, I’d celebrate by downing another bottle of Cycle One, like a fucking addict lost!” “Sounds like a lot of Cycle One,” the Father said, unable to hide his growing erection. “It usually takes only ten-to-twelve to complete the transformation.” Ben scoffs. “I had way more than that,” he says. “Maybe it’s old.” Father John J smiles gently. “Maybe,” he says. “Go on.” “Well, I had to… uh… get through the wall,” Ben says, trying to hide his own hard-on. “My brother had cinderblocked me in, remember.” Father John J shakes his head in disbelief. “Amazing…” “Turns out he had it wrong -- moving the pallet was WAY harder than destroying the wall. The wall was just… a couple of punches and some torn stone. The cement hadn’t really set -- there hadn’t been enough time -- so it wasn’t that difficult to get through. Though, I admit, I did get a couple of scratches and a shit-ton of semi-wet cement in my hair. But right then I was flying so high on the Cycle One, I wasn’t feeling ANYTHING real. “And I break through this wall and I’m feeling mighty and manly and there sits my brother on the cot, jerking off. He’s huge, I mean, bigger than when I’d seen him when he’d torn the door off its track, just… impossibly huge. “And his cock…” Ben almost doesn’t continue, looking down, remembering, then he speaks on. “I never wanted a cock before. I never… desired…” He licks his lips. “And it wasn’t that I wanted his cock so much as I wanted what was inside him -- his essence. His power.” “‘Well, look at you,’ my brother said, playing with himself. ‘You got BIG!’” “And instead of being weirded out by that, I realized he was right -- I HAD gotten big! I hadn’t really paid that much attention. My loose t-shirt was now too tight because of the muscle I’d never had before -- I ripped it off with glee, flexing my big pecs, my insane arms! I was rock hard celebrating my rock hardness! “So, the whole gay incest thing was unexpected -- at least it was for me, maybe Glenn had had some more time wrap his head around it, but I sure hadn’t considered the sexual response. For me, it was all about the Me Big, Me Strong thing -- it wasn’t until I realized that my cock was part of the equation that I got Me Horny, too! “And it just felt so weirdly natural, jerking off with my muscular brother while we flexed for each other. He had me wear this electric blue thong he’d found in the dresser -- I’d never worn anything like it, so scanty and sexy -- but I looked AMAZING in it! My fucking body -- in the mirror, hypnotized by my own reflection, so turned on by myself. “We worked out and pumped up and flexed and he kept pounding back the Cycle One, bottle after bottle. “Pretty soon flexing and jerking off weren’t enough anymore. Men fuck. And um… when my own brother tried to fuck me… that was the end for me. I… I couldn’t.” A tear rolls down Ben’s cheek. Father John J hugs him, drawing him in close. Ben tries not to weep, but loses the battle, hugging Father John J back -- he’s ashamed of his erection. Father John J seems to be okay with it, pressing himself even closer against the hardness. “Everything’s okay,” Father John J whispers. “I will help you with your brother, but first things first.” Using his right hand, he casually strokes Ben’s erection. “Let’s make an offering to God.” ******************************************************************************* THREE: In the Beginning, Rex the Almighty was born on this Earthly plane, a mutant to two normal mortals. His Divine Power manifested as He ascended to manhood -- transforming mortals into His worshipful slaves by granting them muscle mass and a spark of His Hyper-Masculine Energy. Finding himself ready to accept His destiny, our Lord Rex began His Holy Crusade, the elevation of the Super-Hero. Until this time, no one had submitted the Mighty Superion, the greatest of all the mortal heroes. His power and will were legendary, until humbled by our Lord. Rex not only enslaved Superion, He took the hero as His Royal Consort. And unlike most marriages of powerful families, these newlyweds truly and deeply loved one another. This marriage was blessed by the gods themselves. Rex continued His Divine Campaign and recruited the Justice Club itself to His cause -- at one crucial point, He absorbed the mystic lightning used to transform Timmy Thompson into the Planet’s Most-Powerful Protector, Captain Thunder, and Rex was elevated even further, truly becoming KING Rex, the most powerful man on the planet! His Majesty discovered that His ejaculate had been mystically enhanced, as was fitting for a living god -- with little more than a drop, He could transform a mortal man into a hypermuscular slave without using His God-gifted powers. Diluting it, packaging it, and marketing it as the sports drink, “Cycle One” was a stroke of His genius -- it began the subtle transformation of the masses into His worshipful followers. These were the Glory Days of the Church! The Acolyte John J was the first man transformed by His Majesty, King Rex, the Living God. A museum security guard, the skinny waste of a man John J quickly cast aside his old life to follow His Saviour and Transformer. Blessed by the gift of Rex’s power, John J now had the body of his dreams, power he’d only imagined, and finally, a purpose for his purposeless life. He was more than happy to recruit other men into the fold, to help them experience the bliss of worshipping King Rex, their creator and Living God. The Acolytes John J and Sam Bennett distributed the Cycle One, turning gyms into churches and athletic departments into sects. All of that male sexual energy further empowered His Majesty, creating a never-ending cycle of growth. A worship service could have as many as a thousand muscular men cramming the sanctuary, praising His Majesty as they edged themselves into Bliss -- it was possible to actually see King Rex grow from the worship. There was no greater reward. And then, the Great Tragedy -- King Rex lost in the Multiverse! Thus began the Period of Despair -- the Consort Superion went into mourning, completely unable to function or uphold his duties, emotionally devastated to lose his King and lover. For weeks, he remained cloistered in their marital chambers, not seeing visitors, not spending time in the sun -- he weakened, some thought, hoping to die. There was dysfunction in the Church, suddenly lacking a spiritual leader. With their Lord and Saviour trapped in the Multiverse and Superion unwilling to take His place as figurehead, there was nothing to hold the flock together. The men who’d been transformed by His Majesty, the Almighty King Rex, suffered only emotionally. Those who’d been transformed by the Cycle One lost touch with the magic, their masculine spirit. With Rex gone, the supply of Cycle One was suddenly finite -- that was the conclusion many reached at once. The fight for the remaining reserve became the next battlefront. Men who’d been long-addicted to the stuff suddenly lost the will to train, the ability to get a pump, their interest in sex -- they knew they’d never again get that rush, that high without Cycle One. And thus began the Supply War. It was during this low-level, guerilla-style warfare -- bloody and heartless as it was fast becoming -- that the Acolyte John J began to counsel the Consort Superion, trying to get him past his crushing loss to see how badly the world needed a champion again. All this bloodshed, all this death for a drug made out of his husband’s cum -- this is what finally brought Superion to action. In less than a week, he’d recovered most of the lost stock of Cycle One, returning it to the vaulted catacombs in the bedrock deep beneath the Church. He still refused to participate in Religious Services, but created a statue of his Husband and Lord that stands in the Sanctuary today, as a reminder. Instead, it became the Acolyte John J’s mission to save the Church -- but he immediately realized it wasn’t religion these men needed, it was counseling. They were addicts and their god was gone. Without the drug, they were unable to access their own masculine energy. Workouts lost their meaning -- sex became impossible. And thus evolved the practice of Group Masturbation, sexual stimulation with the goal of connecting to the masculine spirit, building energy by edging, the harnessing of energy rather than ejaculation. On Cycle One, sex had always been about power -- now sexual energy was used to build power. Men who were used to getting powerful, rock-hard erections now had to take a step back, relearn stimulation and fantasy, enjoy the other wonders of the body, the taint, the balls, the asshole. Sex was more than penetration. Training changed, too -- the evolution of Connective Bodybuilding, forging a link between cock and muscle. In the Before Time, the gym had become a place almost as sacred as the Church. Cycle One had always made working out better than sex, but now there was no more Cycle One, so no connection to masculine energy. Weight training required almost too much adaptation, further separating those who’d been transformed by the Almighty from those who’d only had the Cycle One. Imagine how disheartening it would be to see some men still achieve the kind of pump you used to be able to get, but now could not -- to lift the kind of weights you used to handle with ease, but now could not. It was too hard for too many. The Acolyte John J -- now FATHER John J -- protectively doled out the Church’s supply of Cycle One in the form of Communion. A shot glass of Cycle One for the faithful once a week, then engaging in Group Masturbation while singing the praises of the Almighty Rex. Many men lost the Path, strayed. Spiritual readiness takes patience and no one began taking Cycle One because they were patient. Some men preferred their misery to the challenge of rebuilding their sexual power. After the deaths, the abandonments, the suicides, there were just a few hundred in the congregation, masturbating together and praying. As the years passed without a Second Coming, more and more fell away -- then it was a decade, then it was two. “And so here we are,” Father John J says, gently pushing Ben to a seated position on the Altar, facing the statue of King Rex. “There’s only a handful of us now, awaiting Him, praying for His return.” He kneels between Ben’s legs and unlaces Ben’s tight joggers. “But we have learned things in this time,” he continues, pulling Ben’s joggers down over his newly-muscled thighs. “Things about pleasure, the giving and receiving of it.” Ben wears a sparkly thong, barely holding his enhanced genitals -- his erection fights the material. “Let me show you,” Father John J says, releasing Ben from the confines of the thong -- his hard-on flops up on his muscular abs. “I’m not gay,” Ben mumbles, leaning back on his elbows, the soft matting of the Altar accepting his weight. “But ever since the Cycle One…” “It’s not about labels, Ben,” the Father says, gripping Ben’s erection at the base. “It’s about pleasure.” He licks the head of Ben’s cock and a shudder goes through the man. “Cycle One just bumps up your hormones and lowers your inhibitions -- neither of which will hurt you, unless it builds up in your system too much. Then you need release. Holy Release.” The Father’s hands are smooth and skilled -- a firm grip on Ben’s balls, thick fingers riding down the sides of his perineum, giving him sensations he’s never felt before -- strange new pleasure. Ben is losing himself in it. “What you feel is a gift,” says the Father, expertly swallowing the whole of Ben’s big new cock. He constricts his throat around Ben and waits for Ben’s natural thrusts before continuing. “A gift from His Majesty,” he says, lapping the tip of Ben’s cock, before descending on it again. “King Rex.” Ben looks up at the statue as the Father continues to work -- it’s unbelievable physique and impossible cock, so masculine and perfect. Ben can feel the Father fingering his asshole, gently teasing his way inside, searching for Ben’s secret button. The statue holds its arms open, as if ready to accept worship -- or orgasm -- or offering. What happens next makes no sense. The Father’s skilled mouth works in tandem with his talented fingers and, just as the Father discovers Ben’s prostate, Ben swears he sees the statue open its eyes and look directly at him, into his soul. “REX!” he screams as his orgasm overwhelms him! Not that the Father lets any get away, but Ben knows there’s a lot of cum -- he can feel it like his cock is a firehose. He shoots and shoots, crying to Heaven, certain the statue is real. “Yes, my brother,” the Father says, lapping Ben’s fading erection, cleaning every delicious drop away. “Now you feel Rex’s power. Give yourself up to it.” “I… I…” “Say it,” the Father says, standing, masturbating his own giant cock. “Let me hear you say it.” Ben smiles. “Hail King Rex,” he says, as the Father allows himself to orgasm, as if the words put him over the edge. “HAIL KING REX!” the Father yells, echoing through the sanctuary, shooting a thick rope of cum across Ben’s face. Father John J smiles again. “You’ve been baptised now in the name of our saviour, King Rex,” he says calmly, milking the last drops of cum from his cock and offering his finger to Ben -- Ben gratefully takes it in his mouth. “You are now one of us.” “Thank you,” Ben says, relieved, watching the Father refit his big package into that tiny little thong. “I actually feel better -- I feel the release. But what do we do now?” “Now we save your brother,” the Father says. “And I know just the guy…” “You’ll do that for me?” Ben asks, suddenly joyful, standing and redressing himself. “Thank you!” “Well,” the Father says, playfully kissing Ben, “we should first discuss a TITHE…” ******************************************************************************** FOUR: Ben parks the truck outside the ETERNAL STORAGE building, an old, abandoned facility scheduled for demolition (to build an Amazon distribution center -- welcome to the modern world). The parking lot is cracked and broken, stray grass and weeds growing wherever they can, reclaiming the land. It’s surrounded by a rusty chain link fence topped with barb wire. The building is in no better shape, holding its form only because it’s made from cinderblocks, but suggesting the same sort of neglect. Behind the wheel, Ben forces a deep breath before exiting the cab, in an attempt to settle himself -- it’s obvious he’s nervous, no matter the supportive talk from his passenger, Father John J. Ben is dressed in the same tight gray jumpers he wore to the Church -- the Father wears black spandex shorts, black wrist gauntlets, sandals, and a form-fitting white t-shirt that reads “REX = KING”. Exiting the cab, the Father, looking around, says, “You’re right. This IS the middle of nowhere.” Ben nods, shutting the driver’s side door behind him and looking toward the building. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “I hope nothing’s happened to him.” “Who?” Father John J asks. “Oh, you mean your brother! I thought you meant…” And then, from out of the sky, a being lands on the ground before them with a surprising amount of force, breaking into the cement and creating a small crater from his weight. It’s the hero Superion! Ben has seen pictures, of course, but has never seen him live -- and the pictures don’t do him anywhere near justice! If he’s not seven-feet tall, then he’s six-and-three-quarters -- it doesn’t seem possible that a being with a build like Superion’s could exist at his height. He’s almost a giant in a children’s story, he’s so colossally large -- human proportions, but so much taller! And the muscle -- the mind-boggling muscle! Like Father John J, Superion has been transformed by King Rex, given the Royal Gift of Mass and Power, Hypermasculine Endowment, and Sexual Realignment. As Royal Consort, he’s second only to Rex Himself -- and with Rex lost in the Multiverse, Superion reigns supreme. He wears black combat boots and bright blue leggings, accented by black piping, that proudly display his oversized package and seem to barely contain the mass of his leg muscles or his thick, ripped glutes. They’re low-waisted, so that the buckle of his belt sits at the base of his cock, allowing us to see his extremely ripped abs unencumbered. Shirtless, he wears only a harness that supports his “S” shield and acts as the anchor for his red cape. Bigger than the biggest bodybuilder, his pecs are round and thick and his pink nipples hide just below the bottom edge. But it’s the width of shoulders that gives Ben pause, those crazy way-larger-than-coconut delts -- bowling ball delts! -- the strong, confident arms, the artistic curve of the lats. And if you can take your eyes from his body, to see his thick neck, his square jaw, his sunny blue eyes, his very kissable lips… Superion strides toward them, breaking Ben’s thought. He smiles, glowing white teeth catching the light. “Hello, Johnny,” he says, opening his arms for a hug. Father John J takes a knee. “Your Majesty,” he says, bowing his head. Superion puts his finger beneath the Father’s chin and raises his head. “Johnny,” he says earnestly, “it’s been twenty years. We have to move on.” He takes Father John J’s hands and raises him to his feet, then they hug. They hold each other very closely -- Ben isn’t sure if Father John J is crying or not. “He will come again,” the Father says, into Superion’s pec. Superion holds the back of Father John J’s head and whispers, “I dearly hope so” into the Father’s ear. He kisses Father John J’s forehead and releases him, turning his attention to Ben. “You must be Ben Fortunato,” he says, holding his hand out to shake. Ben considers dropping to his knees, that’s how strikingly beautiful this man is. Instead, he stammers, “Um… yes. Ben. And you must be… incredible!” Superion smiles broadly -- he’s heard this joke. “Superion,” he says, shaking Ben’s hand. “I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances.” “I’m so grateful for your help,” Ben says. Superion grunts. “Anything to put another one of these fires out,” he says, looking up at the building. Something happens to his eyes as he looks, but Ben can’t say exactly what. “He’s up there,” Superion announces, studying. “He’s okay -- he’s pretty big.” “Thank God he’s okay,” Ben says, crossing himself. “How big?” Father John J interrupts. “Is the Cycle One okay? How much is left?” They both look at the Father dryly. Superion says, “Do you know, Johnny, nothing would make me happier than to destroy this building and all the Cycle One in it -- you know that, right?” The Father squares off with him. “I do,” he says, trying to maintain his bravado. “But you won’t, right?” Superion smiles enigmatically. “I’m gonna go get your brother,” he says to Ben. “I won’t be a minute.” He enters the building and disappears from view. Ben and the Father don’t even have time to begin a conversation before the wall above them blows out, throwing chunks of cinderblock, cement, and bottles of Cycle One raining down like shrapnel as Superion’s body comes crashing through, flying about twenty feet before slamming into the ground. Superion stands, wiping the dust from himself -- with the back of his hand, he strokes the side of his jaw that has just been punched. Superion is clearly unhappy. He strides toward the building, kicking away the stray bottles, determined. “You guys might want to stand back,” he says. “He’s not being cooperative.” Superion flies back into the hole he just made. Seconds later, a different body crashes out through the roof -- not Superion -- a hugely muscled man dressed only in a pair of neon green short shorts that ride into his ass-crack. “For the love of God!” Ben yells. “GLENN!” His brother sails up about thirty or forty feet into the air before arcing down toward the ground. He lands hard on his back with a wind-losing smack. Trying to shake it off and stand, he snorts like an animal. Ben is trying to comprehend what his brother has become. Even in the few days since Ben last saw him, Glenn has grown. His brother had always been a heavy-set, snowman/ pear-shaped guy, wide hips and narrow shoulders. Now he’s a freak bodybuilder with a roidgut that rivals a beach ball, supporting these thick and ponderous limbs. It should be impossible for him to move, given the size of his muscle -- traps that almost keep him from turning his head, a back so wide he can’t lower his arms completely -- yet move he does, with confidence and surprising grace. Superion flies up out of the hole in the roof and lands about ten feet away from Ben’s brother. “Stop!” he commands, holding up a flat palm. But like an angry bull, perhaps egged-on by Superion’s flowing red cape, Glenn charges, gaining steam with each step. It takes little effort for Superion to side-step him, trip him, and force him forward till he slams into the side of the building. Glenn roars in anger, throwing a chunk of broken block at Superion. As Superion knocks it aside, Glenn takes advantage of the distraction and tackles Superion from the side, taking him to the ground. His brother is bigger than Superion! “He’s in a rage!” Father John J says as he and Ben seek a better observation spot, running to the far-side of the building -- Father John tries to grab the extra bottles. “His energy is out of control.” Glenn has Superion in a schoolboy pin, squatting across Superion’s torso, kneeling on his biceps, punching him over and over in the face, raging. “GLENN!” Ben calls, distracting his brother for just a moment, but enough. Glenn looks at Ben and Superion grabs Glenn’s fist, halting it mid-strike. Superion stands, holding Glenn by the wrist, spins him around and around like a lasso, before throwing him to the other side of the parking lot, where he lands with a loud crunch. “This guy’s pretty far gone,” Superion says to Father John J as Glenn starts to charge back across the lot -- a rhino. “Any ideas? I don’t want to hurt him.” “You have to release his pent-up energy,” Father John J frets, shaking his head as Glenn leaps into the air. “You have to…” Glenn lands within their circle and the reverberation knocks them all off their feet. He steps toward Ben, fierce anger filling his eyes, no recognition, but the hard-on beneath his spandex shorts is more than obvious. Before he can strike, however, Superion grabs him from behind in a full-nelson and flies them up about ten feet into the air. Glenn is trying to shake his grip, thrashing about, but he lacks leverage. That he’s sexually stimulated is lost on no one -- his erection throbs. “You have to make him cum!” Father John J yells. “You have to make him release!” Superion’s grimace speaks volumes, but he sighs and reaches around Glenn, grabbing Glenn’s erection at its thick base, rubbing his hand over the spandex material. Glenn reacts in a surprising way, moaning in his deep throat -- his whole drive seems to shift from “rage” to “lust” as easy as the stick on an old jalopy. He starts dry-humping the air, rubbing his ass against Superion. Horrified, Ben can’t look away. Of all the things he didn’t think he’d be seeing today, this had to top the list. On the other hand, his brother had tried to sexually engage Ben after Ben’s transformation, which had freaked Ben out so much he ran away and brought back Superion. And now it looks like Superion is enjoying himself, too -- there’s no hiding what’s going on in his blue leggings. Father John J had said Superion hasn’t had sex since his lover -- this King Rex -- got tossed into the Multiverse. How does someone go twenty years without sex? MONKS don’t even do that! “It’s not enough to jerk him off,” Father John J yells. “You have to... press his button!” Superion’s frustrated reaction weakens his grip on Glenn, who breaks Superion’s hold and suddenly drops to the ground with a heavy, dull thud. Superion is on him in a flash and the two of them wrestle in the parking lot -- but it isn’t to fight. This is different -- it’s two men squaring off. This is foreplay. Other than size, Glenn has no real advantage over Superion. And now that Superion has a new drive, there’s really no stopping him. Superion is erect himself, his cock as supremely out of proportion as everything else about him -- whatever else this Rex favors, it’s big-dicked muscle-bottoms. They flex at each other, Superion and Ben’s brother, a Most Muscular, an ab/ thigh -- showing off, mutual worship -- double biceps, erections straining flimsy material. Glenn smacks Superion’s pecs with an open hand, then squeezes the muscle as Superion flexes -- fucking rock hard -- punching cement. Looking each other in the eye, Glenn falls to his knees and begins mouthing Superion’s cock through the heavy spandex of Superion’s leggings. Superion unclasps his belt and releases it, allowing Glenn to take it in his mouth. Clearly at some level, Glenn knows what he needs. Or what he wants. “Get it wet,” Superion orders him. “Get it good and wet -- or it’s gonna hurt.” “What’s going on?” Ben asks Father John J as the Father collects stray bottles of Cycle One. Father John J looks at Superion, then at Ben. “He’s going to fuck him,” Father John J says. “He’s gotta fuck him and press his button, release the energy. Same as I did with you at the Church!” Ben crosses himself. “But you just used your fingers,” Ben says. “Why does he have to…?” Father John J shushes him. Glenn holds Superion’s cock in his fist and spits on the head, immediately putting it back in his mouth, soaking the thick, super-shaft. Superion pushes him onto his back, straddling Glenn’s chest to allow Glenn to continue sucking his cock, but putting Superion into a dominant position. Superion licks his fingers and reaches for Glenn’s hole -- so tight -- Glenn squirms, discovering a new sensation. “Yeah,” Superion says. “Big boy likes that.” “All Hail His Majesty’s Consort, the Mighty Superion,” Father John J intones, falling to his knees with an armful of bottles. “All praise King Rex!” Superion shoots Father John J a snide look. “Don’t do that shit, Johnny,” he says. “This is pragmatism, not Church! Toss me a bottle of that stuff!” “It IS Church!” Father John J argues, still on his knees. “You engage in the holiest of acts, a sacrifice -- an offering! I must pray!” Superion shakes his head but doesn’t argue. “Throw me a bottle of that stuff!” he says again. Father John J won’t release what he’s gathered, so it’s Ben who throws one to him -- or overthrows, actually -- he doesn’t know his own strength. Superion catches it with such confidence and ease that it makes it look like it had been intended that way. Superion cracks open the Cycle One, sniffs it -- a memory floats across his features -- and he pours a tiny bit over his cock, into Glenn’s desperate mouth. Glenn groans again, desperately lapping it off. Superion pulls his cock out of Glenn’s mouth and says, “On your hands and knees -- NOW.” He levitates slightly, allowing the three-hundred-plus giant to spin beneath him -- moving from one submissive pose to the next -- then he slowly pours the Cycle One down Glenn’s ass-crack, until it reaches the fingers Superion has against Glenn’s hole. Using the honey-thick Cycle One as lube, Superion pushes his fingers in. Glenn’s moan is a roar that can be heard for miles. “Bigger than that coming,” Superion says, pushing his fingers in and out. Father John J weaves while he prays. “We commend this energy to you, Great Lord, lost in the Multiverse, that it might find you and strengthen you for your journey home!” Superion yells. “Johnny, please!” as he pours the Cycle One on his hard cock, like sauce on a meaty rib. “Just let me do what I came here to do!” “Release it!” Father John J prays. “Give it back to the Master!” Superion slams his foot-long cock into Glenn’s waiting ass -- they both scream, both of them from a different sort of denial, but coming together here in this parking lot. Has there been a change in the light? Ben wonders, unable to take his eyes away from his brother’s submission. Where did this wind come from? “Can you feel it?” Father John J shouts. “CAN YOU FEEL THE MASTER?” Superion begins fucking Ben’s brother, doggie-style, gently at first, even then, barely keeping control of himself -- it’s been so long, Superion -- but then, even Glenn wants him to go harder, pushing his ass back into Superion’s cock, trying to form words. Trying to find his own button. And there’s something else around Superion, something familiar, whispering in his memory, filling him with strength and power -- a masculine spirit. Making him fuck -- forcing him to connect and dominate. It feels like his husband… Is he feeling the effects of Cycle One? He releases -- who fucking cares? Fuck -- Superion wants to fuck. He drives into Glenn’s ass, fucking so hard they break the pavement. It’s power and forgotten masculine urges, decades of repression. “CAN YOU FEEL IT?” Father John J yells above the din, the wind, the energy. “PRAY WITH ME! PRAY TO OUR LORD, LOST IN THE MULTIVERSE!” Superion fucks Glenn with his super-long cock, pounding a forgotten, manly rhythm in his loin, awakening something deep within him. The energy crackles like lightning around them. Ben falls to his knees, his legs weak -- what is he seeing? They’re fucking there in the broken parking lot, his brother and Superion, it’s broad daylight, but there’s a sense of darkness around them, reality seems to shift as their sexual energy grows. Superion groans. “I’m so close…” Glenn rises up on his knees, exposing own erection that rises exactly along the curve of his distended belly, almost to his navel. Glenn is flexing his arms in a double bis -- Superion uses them as anchors, deep-thrusting. “Gonna… cum…” “WE CALL ON THEE, GREAT LORD! WE GRANT THEE THIS OFFERING!” Superion, a being that hasn’t orgasmed in nearly two decades, shoots his almost impossible load -- Glenn, who has never anally-orgasmed, explodes with incredible pent-up masculine energy, his “overdose” on Cycle One, and climaxes simultaneously. They scream together, too, full-throated and deep. There’s an explosion -- well, something very much like one. It’s like nothing Ben has ever experienced before. There’s no sound, no BOOM -- it’s almost as if someone takes reality, twists it, and then releases it to snap back into place. The explosion -- if one can call it an explosion -- is energy, electricity and force, concussive and multi-layered. There is a soundless brightness that blows them all back -- Ben’s back slams into the wall of the Eternal building, cracking the brick. There’s a hissing in the background, like pink noise, that settles out of the silence -- and then Ben’s hearing comes back. Or reality comes back -- it’s hard to say. His brother Glenn’s body slams on the ground before him, steaming a little, digging up the asphalt a little more. He rolls over on his back directly in front of Ben. “GLENN!” Ben calls, scrambling over to his brother. He slaps his face. “Glenn, wake up! Oh, God… Oh, sweet God be okay.” Glenn comes to, a little disoriented -- the crazed, drug-addled look in his eye is gone. “Ben?” he asks, looking Ben in the eye. “What’s going on? I… Bro… what happened? You’re huge! Wait, I’M huge!” Ben chuckles. “It’s a long story,” he says, nearly in tears. “And I don’t think it’s over yet…” Both Superion and Father John J had been knocked back, too, in opposite directions. Superion is already recovering, steaming himself, studying the blast area. The spot where they’d cum is now a blown out pit, smoke and steam and electric crackles encircling it. Superion immediately checks on the others, locating and diagnosing their injuries -- bumps and bruises, but generally okay -- when he hears a moan come from the pit itself. What? How is that possible? Father John J hears the sound as well, and draws up onto his knees like a hopeful teen. As Superion stands on shaky feet, the figure in the pit finds his footing, too, his face hidden by the steam, the unnatural shadow, and electrical snaps. He is a giant of man, bigger than Superion, more powerful, more muscular. His god-given body beyond fantasy, his muscle on the edge of impossible. In his purple shorts with the gold piping, the golden boots and gauntlets, the simple over the shoulder cape and the electric-metal lightning bolt emblazoned on his chest, he is instantly recognizable. Especially to Superion. “Rex…?” he asks, a smile finding the corner of his mouth. “Is it really you?” The muscle god smiles. “Superion?” he asks. “Am I home? Am I finally home?” They fall into each other’s arms, laughing and kissing, relieved and amazed. Even Ben smiles, happy that there’s a happy ending with Cycle One for once. Glenn, confused, asks his tearful brother, “What’s happening…?” He’s answered by Father John J. “It is the return of His Majesty, Rex the Almighty!” Rex and Superion continue to kiss, flying up into the air together. Father John J opens his arms to the world. “IT IS THE SECOND COMING!” **************************************************************************************** EPILOGUE: “Hey everybody, this is Glenn!” “And this is Ben!” “We’re the Fortunato Brothers! And you’re watching another episode of ‘Can You Believe They Bought That Shit?’” TITLE -- THEME MUSIC “In this episode, we’re actually gonna be talking about SELLING shit for a change.” “Hey! Before we go on... Viewers, did you notice our new logo in the opening?” (CUTAWAY: the old logo, the Fortunato Brothers looking like cartoon Laurel & Hardy (one fat, one thin) fades to the new logo: Laurel & Hardy as bodybuilders, one arm wrapped around their brother and the other flexing their biceps. (CUT BACK to the live Brothers in the same pose as the logo, barely holding their laughter.) “If you’ve noticed we look a little different than we have in past episodes, but you don’t know why, it’s possible you missed our TRANSFORMATION SPECIAL that dropped a couple weeks ago.” “I don’t know, Ben. With over two-hundred million downloads, I don’t think many people have missed out TRANSFORMATION SPECIAL!” “It’s still available if you have, that’s all I’m saying…” “But what you HAVEN’T missed is what transformed us into this muscled perfection, the awesome sports drink CYCLE ONE!” Glenn reveals a bottle in frame, holding it for the camera to see -- plain, ordinary looking stuff for what it could do. “It took about a dozen of these to transform my skinny brother Ben there into THAT!” Ben flexes for the camera, his muscle pumped, his confidence high. “No lie,” Ben says. “Believe me, I would never have done this without CYCLE ONE -- I was too lazy and too weak. Not anymore.” Glenn wraps his massive arm around Ben’s neck and pulls him close -- he kisses the side of Ben’s head. “Isn’t he cute?” Glenn asks. “So, we’re doin’ something we don’t normally do: we’re selling some shit. CYCLE ONE, to be specific. You can get to my brother’s size with a twelve-pack -- you can get to mine with a case!” The brothers flex for the camera -- the spandex shirts they wear ripple with muscle. “We haven’t even talked about the biggest bonus!” Glenn continues to flex for the camera. “Tell ‘em, Ben!” “When you go to the bidding page, click the link to join King Rex’s Holy Order and be a Knight for His Majesty, the power behind Cycle One, the Living God, King Rex, once lost in the Multiverse but now found! Be His Knight, His Holy Warrior, and join the Crusade in His second coming!” Glenn laughs. “Geez, Ben, you sound like a fanboy!” Ben is sincere. “I witnessed God’s Second Coming, Glenn,” Ben says simply. “That kind of thing… changes a man…” ************************************************************************************* Sam Bennett pauses the video. He’s watched it a thousand times -- he knows what it says by heart, by now. Still, it’s the first thing to give him an erection in almost a decade. How should he feel about that? He presses Play. “...sound like a fanboy.” “I witnessed God’s Second Coming, Glenn. That kind of thing… changes a man…” Pause. Not really believing he’s doing it, but somehow certain it’s the right move, Sam Bennett presses the link to join the Knighthood, the Holy Order of King Rex. He does it because he wants to believe in Happy Endings.

“Hey everybody, this is Glenn!” “And this is Ben!” “We’re the Fortunato Brothers! And you’re watching another episode of ‘Can You Believe They Bought That Shit?’” TITLE -- THEME MUSIC “In this episode, we’re nosing in on the Storage Auction scene!” “Yeah, my brother and I took some of the profits we’ve made from our podcast this season and -- as usual -- WE BOUGHT SOME SHIT!” “What’d we get this time, Ben?” “That’s a good question, Glenn! The truth is -- I don’t know! Like everybody in the Storage Auction biz, we bought blind!” (EXTERIOR SHOT: Drone -- camera pans across the abandoned “ETERNAL STORAGE” building. There are faded egyptian pyramids painted on the storefront, symbolizing eternity -- subtly informing the viewer that they’ll own their junk forever. We can see the cracked asphalt of the old parking lot and the dilapidated condition of the building. Clearly, from the view, we’re in the middle of nowhere.) BEN (in VO): The Eternal Storage facility went out of business about a decade ago, but they never emptied it. Scheduled for demolition, “Eternal” decided to auction off the unclaimed lots, which these sorts of companies do regularly -- it’s even easier now, thanks to COVID. We bought our booty online. (INTERIOR SHOT: Hallway. Rows of storage units, resembling garage doors, run the dusty, broken down hallway. Some are open and empty, several are locked shut. The electric hall lights work by luck alone, creating a dim, prison-like atmosphere. The Buy-It Brothers are “Live” again. Glenn steps into frame.) “But you know us,” Glenn says, smiling his jowly, toothy grin at the camera. “We don’t ever buy a little shit when a lot of shit’s available!” Ben pops in frame, interrupting. “So we bought THREE of these things!” “Well, the fact is we bought an entire lot, which includes these three units, right here next to each other!” “Who knows what wonders we’ll find?” “No one till we open it. So, what do you say? Which one you wanna start with?” “Let’s start with Door Number One!” Ben says, pulling out a tagged key. As he unlocks an ancient, massive padlock that secures a chain to keep the metal “garage door” in place, his brother hogs the camera. “The fun of this style of ‘Blind Buying’ has spawned quite a few tv shows. Who knows what will be inside? Will it have value, or is it just old furniture and clothes? Is it King Tut’s tomb or Al Capone’s vault? If my brother can ever get the lock off, we’ll find out!” Smiling, Ben says, “This shit’s old!” “So’s your Momma!” Ben snorts, turning the key with great effort. “She’s your Momma, too,” he says, as the lock snaps open with a lethargic clack. “And you know she watches this show.” Ben pulls the chain out of the grating and the two of them squat down to open the sliding door. They couldn’t be less like each other, physically -- Glenn is built like a Snowman and Ben like a String Bean -- although you can see they’re related by face. And sense of humor. The hallway echoes with the sound of scraping, stubborn metal-on-metal force, as if the doorway didn’t fit correctly into its runners, as if it had been pounded out of shape. They get it up almost two feet before it won’t budge another inch. Ben, his skinny bod already used up, sighs loudly and pants. “Okay, maybe Tut’s tomb was a little easier! Want to try one of the others first?” Glenn is kneeling down, shining his flashlight into the darkness of the storage space. “No,” he says. “I can fit under this -- it doesn’t look like it’s jammed full of stuff -- lemme find the light.” “Go, Indy!” Ben mocks as Glenn slides (barely) under the stuck door. Ben gives a side-eye to the camera and whispers, “Indiana Jones was in better shape than my brother…” He harrumphs sarcastically, indicating his lean frame. “Usually, I’m the one squeezing into tight spaces, but my brother likes being the showman when the camera’s on. What’s going on in there?” he calls. “Hold on -- looking for a light. This is crazy!” “What?” Suddenly, the interior light comes on, flooding the space and leaking through the jammed metal door. “Holy crap! Get in here, Ben -- bring the camera!” (INTERIOR SHOT: Storage Unit One, about the size of a standard one-car garage, unpainted cinder-block walls with an overhead neon light. The space is full of gym equipment, not just stored willy-nilly, but set-up as if to be functional, as if someone worked out here. There’s a cable-crossover on the far end, before the mirrored wall. A squat rack on one side, a series of benches and dumbbells on the other. Dusty and cobwebbed, it hasn’t seen use in a while -- but it once did. Lots of use from its condition.) “Look at this!” Glenn says to the camera, smiling broadly. “This is someone’s gym!” Ben looks around. “Maybe some gym went out of business or something…” “No. This looks like someone used it. I mean, this stuff is set up, not stored.” He pulls a pair of 20-pound dumbbells from the rack and struggles to do some bicep curls. “Look at me,” Glenn laughs. “I’m Ah-nold!” He puts the dumbbells back on the rack with a clang that echoes through the space. His pear-shaped body couldn’t possibly look less like Schwarzenegger. Weird. “This is weird,” says Ben. “I know,” laughs Glenn. “Can You Believe We Bought That Shit?” Even Ben laughs at this. “Another mystery for the Buy-It Brothers!” he says back, smiling. “Hey, look back here! There’s a door to the next room -- we won’t have to try and open the front slider!” “Thank God,” Ben says, pulling the heavy wad of keys, chains, and rings from the pocket of his cargo shorts and dropping them on the flat bench. Behind and to the side of the cable crossover -- almost hidden to the eye -- there’s a standard gray industrial door that leads to the next unit. The knob has a keyhole, but as Glenn grabs it, the door breaks off its hinges and falls to the side, as if someone had forced their way through it and tried to put it back in place so no one would notice. “Fine construction,” Glenn jokes. “No wonder they’ve condemned this building.” “This is all very weird.” Glenn pulls the flashlight from out of his back pocket. “At least I know where the light switches are,” he says, entering the dark room. “Be careful,” Ben calls, shooting a nervous glance at the camera. He sees the light come on in the next room, but when he doesn’t hear anything more from his brother, he steps toward the door. “Glenn…?” His brother’s voice isn’t scared, exactly, but he certainly sounds concerned. “Ben,” he says, “bring the camera.” (INTERIOR SHOT: Interior of Unit Two. Ben is clumsy, so the camera is jerky as the stand is reset. This room is identical to the other in terms of construction (and lack of color), but it has a different function -- this is living quarters. At one end of the storage unit, along the wall is a simple cot with a nightstand, a lamp, and a small dresser -- a dull, circular floor rug breaks up the cement. On the other wall, a cheap recliner aimed at a crude, old-fashioned entertainment center -- a TV, a VCR and several dozen VHS tapes. Along the back end of the unit, the opposite end, a seatless toilet, a sink, and a showerhead -- there’s a centered floor drain beneath it.) Taking it all in, Ben says, “What the fuck?” Same tone from Glenn. “Can you believe we bought this shit?” “Glenn, what’s goin’ on? Do you think… someone LIVED here?” “Or was KEPT here.” There’s an uncomfortable silence, unusual between these two. To distract himself, Glenn goes to the entertainment center and picks up some of the VHS tapes. He snorts. “What?” asks Ben, turning the camera to catch Glenn. Glenn holds up the tapes to the camera. “It’s all gay porn,” he says. “And a few bodybuilding competitions.” Even Ben sighs and jokes, “Can you believe we bought that shit?” He chuckles. “Do you think any of this has any value at all?” Glenn shrugs, indicating the tapes. “They’re vintage,” he says. “And look,” he continues, turning the TV on, “TV still works!” The TV comes to life with gay porn, two muscular men in the depths of fucking. Crude and savage, the Buy-It Brothers both turn away. “Oh, Geez… turn it off, man!” But it won’t turn off -- Glenn hits the power button any number of times, but the TV keeps on keeping on. “It won’t turn off,” he says. “Looks like it’s gay porn to infinity!” Ben side-eyes the camera. “Unplug it,” he says, which Glenn acknowledges and pulls the plug from the wall -- the TV stops, mercifully. They’re spooked enough. Glenn holds up his hands like he’s won a race. “Ta-dah!” he sings. “Anything in the dresser?” he asks, nodding toward the piece. Ben seems afraid to look, but finally opens the top drawer, which he then immediately closes. “What?” Ben swallows dramatically. “Jockstraps and thongs,” he says. He opens the second drawer. “Underwear and posers,” he says, opening the third. “Spandex shorts and muscle shirts.” He grimly nods. “I am ready to cut our losses and not look in Unit Three.” “Oh, we’re so looking in Unit Three,” Glenn says, crossing to where the doorway would be. Instead, there’s literally a hole in the wall, as if someone had torn the cinderblocks away and made a doorway. Scraps of cement pieces and piles of broken cinderblocks still litter the floor. Someone had clearly meant to fix the damage -- there are a couple of loose bags of cement mix amid the rubble -- but clearly nothing had been done, just dust and destruction with a layer of time. “I mean, obviously, someone wanted in there very badly.” “Where the hell is the door?” asks Ben, moving the camera’s tripod to a new location. “What is going on around here?” “Well, it’s pretty full in here,” Glenn says from the doorway. “But I can slide down the wall and get the lights okay.” Again, after a couple of seconds, the lights come on, though this bulb isn’t quite as good, blinking and fizzing as Ben, carrying the camera, enters. (INTERIOR SHOT: Unit Three. A slightly smaller room than the other two -- maybe half the width -- filled with over a dozen wooden pallets loaded with beverage cases, wrapped tightly in heavy industrial plastic. Some are haphazardly stacked on top of others -- each pallet has six layers of product. They are dusty, resembling forgotten furniture after a hasty move or dinosaur carcasses after a meteor shower.) Ben looks into the camera. “The mystery deepens,” he says. Glenn pulls his knife from the Leatherman attached to his belt and cuts into the heavy plastic wrapping on one of the pallets. “Let’s see what they were hoarding,” he says, pulling out a plastic sports drink bottle, gray with red and gold lettering. “CYCLE ONE,” he reads, shrugging. “You ever heard of it?” “No.” Ben pulls out his phone instinctively to search it, but there’s no coverage inside. “Fucking cinderblocks,” he mumbles. Meanwhile, Glenn cracks open the plastic bottle and chugs it on down. “Glenn!” Ben hollers when he looks up. “What are you doing?” “What?” Glenn says, tossing the empty bottle away. “It’s just a sports drink! I didn’t see an expiration on it -- it was good!” He turns to the camera and adds, “Sadly, it hasn’t fermented.” “I can’t believe you just drank that!” Ben protests. “You don’t know anything about it!” “Oh, for the love of God, Ben! Give it up!” Ben shakes it off. “I’m sorry, bro,” he says. “This whole place has got me a little spooked, is all. This is very weird.” Glenn shrugs dramatically. “What? Some guy who used to own a gym loses it all and instead of being homeless and on the streets…” “...he chooses to live in a storage facility?” Ben finishes. “With his collection of porn, thongs, and sports drinks? No, that doesn’t sound weird at all.” Glenn snorts and begins counting the pallets. “Whatever,” he says. “Ready, math guy?” Ben opens his calculator app. “Ready!” he says. Glenn counts. “Each pallet has ten cases per layer and each is six layers high.” “Sixty cases!” Ben announces. “I didn’t even need the calculator for that!” Glenn laughs. “Twenty-four bottles per case means…?” “Fourteen-hundred forty bottles per pallet.” He counts quickly again. “Twenty pallets…?” “Means we own a shit-ton of this stuff.” Glenn smiles toward the camera. “I love math,” he says. “What are we gonna do with twenty-eight thousand, eight-hundred bottles of old sports drink?” “Twenty-eight thousand, seven ninety-nine,” Glenn chuckles, tossing his empty bottle dramatically over his shoulder, where it clunks emptilly around in the cinderblock space. “That’s gonna eat into our profit margins,” Ben says, shaking his head, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Ben, even if we sell it for a buck a bottle, we still make a shit-ton more than we spent. Plus the gym equipment…” “...and the vintage porn.” Glenn smiles. “And the vintage porn -- we’ll still come out ahead. That it happens to be weird gives us a story to tell, doesn’t it? That’s why we have this camera… and the show…” They both turn to the camera and smile. “Can You Believe We Bought This Shit?” Ben asks dryly. “Okay,” Glenn says, taking charge like he usually does, “we’ll need the Pallet Jack -- we didn’t bring that, did we? -- but we have room in the Hauler to fit all this stuff.” As he talks, he steps back into the middle unit-- the living area -- Ben follows dutifully, taking the camera along. “I doubt we’re gonna want to keep much of this stuff -- I guess the TV works tho, right? And who knows? Maybe there IS a market for vintage porn.” He laughs and walks into the first unit, the one with the gym equipment. “I don’t know how we’re gonna get this stuff outta here -- maybe the guys who buy it can haul it. I don’t know…” Suddenly, he jumps up and grabs the pull-up bar mounted on the top of the cable crossover. Ben is suddenly watching his middle-aged, rugby-thick, out-of-shape brother doing pull-ups -- exercising! “What are you doing?” Ben asks, already laughing. “Pull-ups!” Glenn says breathlessly as he struggles to do a third. He drops heavily onto his feet. “We own a gym now,” he says to his skinny-fat brother. “The Fortunato Brothers Fitness Center! Maybe it’s a sign we should get these sad-ass bods back in shape?” Ben laughs. “You feelin’ okay?” “I feel great!” Glenn says. “Seriously, I feel fucking GREAT! Ever since I had that…” He stops suddenly and looks away, toward the third unit. A devilish smile crosses his face and he exits with purpose back into the other rooms. “Glenn, what are you doing? GLENN!” Ben gives a look toward the camera and is about to go after his brother when Glenn reappears in the broken doorway, holding several bottles of CYCLE ONE. “This shit…” he starts to say. Ben immediately protests, holding his hands up. “Our profit margin!” Glenn tosses a bottle with an easy lob to his brother, but Ben -- never an athlete -- bobbles and drops it. The bottle rolls under the metal gate they’d opened into the hallway beyond. “There goes our profit margin,” Glenn jokes, opening another bottle. As he speaks, he gestures with it. “Why don’t you go grab that bottle? I should’ve known better than to toss it to you.” He slugs down half his new bottle in one gulp, easily. Ben’s tone is serious. “I think you should ease up on that stuff,” he says, making his way toward the metal gate. “You don’t know what’s in it.” “It’s a sports drink.” Glenn waves him off. “It’s just sugar water.” He attempts another set of pull-ups as Ben squats down to go under the door. He’s got a little over two-feet of clearance but he’s reluctant to press his chest to the floor, all that dust and dirt he’d been able to ignore before, when the mystery had captivated him. Now there’s less enthusiasm to follow the rules -- like the game OPERATION, where you shouldn’t touch the sides… Ben’s shoulder whaps the bottom of the metal grate as he rises in the hallway. There is a grinding, loud, metallic shriek and the grate slams solidly onto the cement floor. “Oh, shit,” Ben mumbles. He hears Glenn from inside, slightly muffled. “What happened?” “I must’ve jostled it with my shoulder,” Ben says to the door, speaking a little more loudly than usual, to be heard through the closed door. “That’s why I didn’t make the Limbo Team.” No laugh. Damn. “Okay, let’s heft it back up again!” Ben grabs the handles on his side -- and he can hear Glenn trying to pull the chain on his -- but the door doesn’t budge. “Fuck -- AGAIN!” They try -- even though Ben worries about his back, he throws himself into it -- and fails. The door stays closed. “Fuck,” Ben chants. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” “Well, let’s try one of the other doors,” Glenn suggests from inside. “You have the keys, right?” Ben reaches down to his pockets -- empty? Where…? Oh, shit! He’d taken the keys out of his pocket and put them on the bench -- inside the unit! “Oh, shit!” “What?” “They’re in there!” Ben shouted, slapping the metal door. “They’re in THERE! I took them out of my pocket when I was fumbling with all the camera equipment! They’re on the bench.” He doesn’t hear Glenn’s sighing exhale, but he’s certain that’s what’s happening -- his brother is collecting his wits -- it’s what he always does when he’s angry. “Okay,” Glenn says through the grate. “Is the crowbar in the truck?” “I don’t know,” Ben answers. “I’ll have to check. I don’t think so. I think we took it out when we were emptying from that last job.” “It’s okay,” Glenn says. “We’re gonna need the Pallet Jack anyway. Okay, you head to the Workshop and get the crowbar, the Pallet Jack, any kind of hack saw we might have if we gotta cut those chains…” “Glenn, the Workshop is almost a hundred miles away!” “Well, we don’t have much choice -- unless you’re strong enough to tear through these metal grates with your bare hands, we’re gonna need tools. And the tools are in the Workshop…” “Which is a hundred miles away!” Glenn laughs. “Well, I’m not going anywhere! So you might as well get to it… unless you don’t have the truck keys?” “They’re in the truck.” He can hear Glenn sigh. “You just leave keys everywhere…” Ben doesn’t laugh. “You’re hysterical,” he says. “Look, Glenn, I feel bad enough…” “It’s not a big deal,” his brother says through the metal grate. “It’s just a couple hours. I have plenty to do -- I have games on my phone and shit -- don’t worry. Hey, I can always work out and watch vintage porn, right?” That his brother, trapped because of Ben’s own foolishness, would work so hard to make jokes shows Ben how much Glenn cares. Ben can’t help but smile. “Yeah, I guess,” he says. “I’m sorry, Glenn.” “It’s just gonna be a couple hours -- and we’ll get a good story out of it. Don’t worry, Ben, it’s all good. Now go get the tools -- I’m done talking through a garage door. Frankly, I feel like working out.” “Don’t drink any more of that shit!” “Too late!” For some reason, as much as anything else, that lights a fire in Ben’s pants. He can’t shake his uneasy feeling about that stupid sports drink -- he’s sure he’s heard of it before. On the floor against the far wall sits the bottle he’d come out here for -- without much consideration, he picks it up off the floor and puts it in the side pocket of his cargo shorts (where the keys had been). Ben hurries down the stairs and exits the building -- this time smart enough to block the door with a cinderblock, so it won’t lock by accident behind him. The keys are in the truck -- thank God for small favors! -- but the crowbar is not. There’s not a helpful tool in the bed. (They’d taken the toolbox out to create room for all the loot they were gonna haul from this Buy-It score!) Just one stupid thing after the next -- and here they are now, Glenn locked in a unit with vintage porn! So it would be REALLY stupid if something happened to me now, Ben thinks, driving a little too old-lady like. But it’s better than getting pulled over, or having an accident, or any of the other myriad horror stories he imagines happening as he drives the nearly hundred miles to their Workshop while his brother is trapped. “I just got here!” he texts when he arrives at the Workshop, nearly two hours later -- the text isn’t delivered. He tries to shrug it off, shutting the door of the truck -- the one shrink-wrapped with their Buy-It Brothers logo -- and enters their warehouse (their “Workshop”) -- the one sporting that same logo over cartoon-versions of he and Glenn. (Ben thought they looked a little too much like Laurel and Hardy, but no one knew that reference anymore.) With haste, he gathers the things he’ll need, the crowbar, the hacksaw -- he has to locate the Pallet Jack. He’s wasting so much time on it, he considers leaving it behind. Fortunately, just as he’s thinking that, he trips over it. (It’s mostly hidden beneath a hastily discarded tarp.) It takes some little effort to lift it up into the bed of the truck -- lifting stuff is more his brother’s kind of thing -- but he finally does it, breathing heavily as he rolls the jack deeper into the bed near the cab and straps it in. He’s sweating a little -- and thirsty. Without realizing it, his hand touches the bottle still stashed in his pocket. The CYCLE ONE. He can’t resist. Though he knows his priority is getting back and rescuing his brother, Ben takes a moment to fire up his desktop and do some internet snooping, to satisfy his curiosity (or his paranoia). Cycle One -- there it is -- a sports drink that was all the rage twenty years ago. Internet rumors claim it was the real deal, adding insane amounts of masculine muscle and power, but there were side effects: dangerously increased libido, loss of sexual inhibition, loss of individuality. Crazy internet bullshit -- still, there are dozens of flexing testimonials, young men eager to show off their “transformations.” All of them looking a tiny bit… zealous, perhaps? Another article links Cycle One to a Justice Club Super-Villain, a hyper-muscled bodybuilder by the punny name of King Rex. The pic that accompanies this article shows an impossibly muscled man with a beard transforming a kneeling Superion, the Earth’s most powerful superhero, and turning him into Rex’s worshipful gay slave. The article claims the “secret ingredient” in Cycle One is King Rex’s magical ejaculate. A deeper dive: coincidently, upon the disappearance of this King Rex into the Multiverse, supplies of Cycle One became limited overnight -- and precious. Several would-be cults formed around the protection -- and distribution -- of this suddenly valuable resource. People went to great lengths to horde the stuff -- vaults, fallout shelters, armed-guards at storage units… Ben surfaces from his rabbit hole with the realization of what he and his brother have stumbled upon. In this instance, knowledge hasn’t seemed to give him any power at all -- other than to realize there’s danger, which he’s already suspected. Thanks, knowledge. Hurriedly, Ben gets back to the truck -- leaving the bottle of Cycle One on his desk -- realizing he’s wasted almost twenty minutes online, and heads the ninety-some-odd miles back to the storage units. He wants to floor it and speed the entire way, but he fears getting pulled over, or getting in an accident, or any of the other myriad nightmares that would end with his brother being forever trapped. “Almost there,” he texts at a red light -- the text isn’t delivered. Damn cinder-blocks -- they give little hope. He leaves the main road for the access road, the access road for the side road, the side road for the private drive, until finally, the abandoned ETERNAL STORAGE building comes into view, across the cracked and weed-filled parking lot. Apparently, this is all to be torn down to create an Amazon Warehouse. The Amazons replace the Eternals -- sounds like a bad superhero movie -- Ben can’t help but chuckle, despite the situation. A nerd at heart. He parks next to the door he’d left jammed open with the cinderblock and hurries back inside, grabbing the crowbar out of the truck bed on his way. He bounds up the stairs to the second floor -- as fast as his skinny, awkward body can “bound” anyway -- less like a gazelle and more like a clumsy giraffe with a few extra knees -- and lopes down the hall to their lot. It’s been just a little over five-and-a-half hours, and his brother wasn’t in immediate danger -- (he certainly wasn’t gonna go thirsty) -- still, Ben is worried. From halfway down the hall he can hear it. Right up next to the stuck door it’s impossible to miss: clanging weights, grunts and groans -- his brother is working out! “Glenn?” he calls, slapping the metal door. “Glenn, you OK?” “Ben?” he hears, then the thud of a barbell being dropped. The voice is closer to the door. “You’re back already? I still gotta do deadlifts.” “You’re hysterical,” Ben says, smiling with relief -- his brother isn’t dead. “Are you OK?” He can hear Glenn’s laughter. “WAY better than OK. Bro, this stuff is AMAZING, this CYCLE ONE shit! We’ve struck gold!” “Glenn…” “A buck a bottle? Fuck that. A THOUSAND bucks a bottle! For this…? Hell yeah, they’ll pay it.” “Glenn, I’ve been doing some research on it, the Cycle One, and…” “I don’t care what the Internet says right now, Bro! Let’s just get this fucking door open.” “Um… Okay, I have the crowbar!” “Great! Let’s see if you can get the bottom up a little bit.” Ben jams the crowbar beneath the door -- he’s expecting resistance, but the flat end of the bar simply slides under. Lifting the curled end, Ben slides a piece of broken cinder block beneath to act as a fulcrum. When he attempts to raise the door, the metal dents, lifting a small section up about an inch. When Ben removes the crowbar, he sees his brother stick his fat fingers through the opening from the other side. “I’m almost free!” Glenn says and laughs. Then, he says, “Hey!” like he’s had an idea. “Make another one of those dents about two feet to your left. I got an idea!” Ben shrugs -- “Okay…” -- and slides to his left. Again, the crowbar easily goes under the metal lip. Ben uses the same piece of cinder block and creates another hand-sized dent in the base of the sliding door -- the screech of the metal is almost uncomfortable. Glenn is saying, “Perfect… perfect,” from the other side of the door. “Okay, let’s give it a try!” “What?” “Let’s try to lift it! Grab the handle out there!” “Glenn, we can’t lift this…” “I told you -- I’m fresh! I haven’t done deadlifts, yet.” Bending over rather than squatting, Ben grabs the handle in the center of the roll-up metal door. He’s indulging his brother -- there’s no way they’re moving this door -- so he doesn’t give it his all. So he’s surprised when, on his brother’s count of “Three!” the door actually jerks up a foot or so -- Ben nearly loses his balance. “That’s better,” says Ben’s brother. “I can get a better grip on it now. Hold on a sec…” Ben can hear the sounds of drinking from inside and the clink clunk of an empty plastic bottle as it’s casually tossed away. He burps. “Okay,” he says, again gripping the base of the metal -- Ben can see his sneakers beneath the door. “Let’s do this. Grab on!” Ben grabs the door handle a little more seriously this time, squatting opposite his brother. “One. Two… THREE!” They both throw energy into the movement, but the door doesn’t budge. “No!” Glenn yells. “AGAIN!” A little -- it moves a little -- but nothing that’s gonna rescue anybody anytime soon. “Fuck this… FUCK THIS!” Glenn yells, then Ben can hear him mumble. “Just need a little more. Just a little more…” Again, the sound of drinking, the empty clunk of a thrown bottle. “Fuck this. Let’s get this fucking thing!” They both heave. It moves… slightly! “MORE!” And they both strain. Then, unexpectedly and suddenly enough to surprise Ben, the door doesn’t slide up so much as it gives in to the pressure and folds, shrieking a metallic screech like a tin can collapsing. The force throws Ben off balance and he trips over the crowbar, slamming into the cinderblock wall on the opposite side of the hall. So hard, it knocks the wind from him -- and from the way his head slams back into the brick, he knows he’s about to lose consciousness, too. The image he’s left with: his brother. His brother! Not the teddy-bear, snowman-shaped sibling he’s known for forty years -- not unless his brother is the Hulk and Ben has never figured it out. Standing there in the doorway, arms over his head pushing the door up further, Glenn is massive -- his muscles are impossible! Thick and heavy, but not ripped and “cut” like a bodybuilder in competition. Glenn’s lines are curvaceous, not tight, his flabby tummy has become a “roid-gut”, big, curved lines, round muscle bellies, bloated and swollen -- he wears electric blue posing trunks and a spandex half-shirt that doesn’t reach the bottom of his bulbous pecs, exposing his thick nipples. His biceps are easily as big as his head, maybe bigger while flexed like this -- Glenn’s breathless in his joy, in his win, in his show of power. Look at the size of him! Ben can see his brother is fighting a hard-on in the tiny, shiny posers he barely wears as he flexes his triumph at ripping the door from its track -- he’s so masculine, but what he wears is so… flowery. Feminine. He flexes a most-muscular, popping his traps and his pecs -- just like the Hulk used to on the old TV show when they were kids, fantasizing about being so big. And then -- helplessly -- Ben finally passes out, lost in confusion and darkness. Only certain that he’s too late. ********************************************************************************* Chock! That’s the sound he wakes to, the heavy stone stacking of brick. Chock! Or cinderblocks… Ben opens his eyes tentatively, taking a moment to process where he is. Although he’s leaning against the wall, there are pallets of CYCLE ONE all around him -- he must be in Unit Three! Why…? Chock! What the fuck is that? As he stirs, rising to investigate, he discovers there’s a chain wrapped several times around his ankle -- padlocked on! -- connecting him to the pallet. He screams. “Glenn! GLENN!” “Oh, you’re awake,” he hears from somewhere across the unit, out of sight. “And here I was trying to be quiet…” Chock! “What the fuck is going on?” Glenn laughs. “Good tv.” “What? Glenn, I’m chained to this pallet.” “Yeah, I know -- calm down. Freakin’ out is not gonna help you, bro. It’ll be easier if you think of it as an Escape Room -- the intent IS for you to get out, after all.” Chock! “I don’t understand.” There’s a heavy sigh. “Can you stand up, at least?” his brother asks. “So we can talk face to face.” Ben stands, the chain uncomfortably tight around his ankle, his headache pounding. The pallets are just under six feet high (stacked with cases of Cycle One -- perhaps the last cases of Cycle One), and Ben can see over the top. Not that that lessens the horror. His brother -- his massively muscled brother -- Ben still can’t adjust to the change -- is resealing the hole in the cinderblock wall between units two and three, using the broken pieces from before. He spreads a sloppy layer of cement with his bare hands and then drops a cinderblock into it. Chock! He’s rebuilt the wall only a little higher than his chest, so Ben can still see Glenn’s pecs, traps and shoulders -- and of course, his arms. (He’s so big -- it’s just not possible.) “What are you doing?” Ben asks, barely keeping the fear from his voice. “Okay, again -- calm down,” Glenn said patronizingly, spreading cement. “Freaking out will just waste your time. It’s easy to get out of here -- I’m even gonna tell you how.” Chock! “Glenn, what the fuck…?” Glenn reaches through the opening with his muscular arm -- he’s holding a flashlight and a set of keys (he’s getting cement on them from his fingers). He drops them on the floor, well on the other side of the room. “These are the keys to your chains,” he says, pulling his arm back and peeking through the gap. “And my torch, which is a literary allusion -- forget it. Anyway, I figure after drinking a dozen bottles or so, you’ll be big enough to drag that pallet over here and get these keys.” “WHAT?!?” “I told ya, it’s good tv.” Chock! “See, Ben,” Glenn says as he continues re-building the wall, “I knew you wouldn’t drink it voluntarily. No doubt you ran home and researched it and found all the reasons NOT to drink it -- that’s so like you -- but I say when you come across a magic muscle potion, you drink it! That’s the difference between you and me.” Chock! “Would you please stop doing that?” Glenn doesn’t stop -- he continues. “But then I thought, what if he’s his normal smart-ass self? What if he just tears through the heavy plastic and empties the pallet? That’d make it pretty easy to drag across the room, right? So I decided to create another little obstacle for you. Even if you cheat on the pallet (and personally, I don’t think you’re strong enough to tear through the industrial plastic), you still gotta get through this wall. But I figure, after you drink a case, you’ll do it with ease. Look what I did to that fuckin’ roll-up door!” He laughs. “It’s so fucking awesome, Bro!” “Glenn… please…” Chock! “I considered simply force-feeding you, but that’s kind of an overused trope, isn’t it? This way makes more compelling drama. Did you see the camera over by the sliding door?” Ben looks to his left and sees the camera on its tripod atop a pallet of CYCLE ONE, aimed at him, filming his dilemma. Good TV... “I filmed my own transformation,” Glenn adds. “Well, not so solid at the beginning, but I have a cum-shot at the end that’ll blow you out of the water! And my Scanty Fashion Show will get us a ton of views!” “What?” “Trust me, Ben -- this stuff enhances EVERYTHING!” “Glenn, please don’t do this.” “You’ll thank me, bro. That I know -- you just need the right motivation. String bean like you… it’s what you’ve always dreamed of. Big muscles. Feels good. No work. Right up your alley.” Chock! The wall is almost complete -- just a small gap at the top. Enough to maybe get a grip on… Ben pulls on the chain -- he’s securely in place. This is all a little too melodramatic for him. Would his brother actually abandon him here and let him die? What the fuck? “For the love of God, Glenn!” he shouts as the last cinderblock wedges into place. “Stop!” “Get drinking,” he hears his brother say, his voice muffled. “You can be out in an hour! I’ll be over here working out and modeling posers -- haha!” “Glenn! GLENN!” But Glenn doesn’t answer. All Ben hears is the sounds of gay porn -- vintage gay porn -- the moaning and the raw need permeating the cement wall. Beyond that, the clang of weights in the first unit -- Glenn is at it again. Ben screams out of frustration more than anything else, knowing no one can hear him -- they’re in the middle of nowhere. He’s trapped -- TRAPPED! And completely at the mercy of his brother’s dark sense of 19th century drama. He sits against the wall in a fetal position, crying. Why does this have to be such a difficult choice? At the heart, Glenn is right -- he hates being skinny -- he hates being String Bean. Muscle Zombies searching for hidden stashes of Cycle One… Transformations. He still seems like the same Glenn. (Except maybe the chaining his brother around the ankle part…) Just a fuck-ton bigger -- more masculine. Sexier. He holds the bottle in his hand -- firm, hard plastic -- unemotional, cold. What if you held a magic muscle-growth potion in your hands? Would you drink it? Knowing what it would do? (He hears his brother’s obsessive training.) Knowing what it would change? (He hears the vintage porn.) He looks at the camera and flies it the bird. Fuck you, good TV. Finally, long minutes later, the sound of him cracking the bottle echoes around Unit Three.

KING REX 2: THE HORDE OF FUTURE-HEROES PROLOGUE/ CHAPTER 1: The End of Time/ Horde Headquarters By absman420 PROLOGUE: The End of Time Decay. Entropy and decay as far as the eye could see. Even the empty wind moved nothing but sand, already having worn down any obstacle that may have stood in its wake -- eroded any object that may have existed in the past. Simply put, if not nearly impossible to imagine, there was nothing here. A vast and endless nothing. It was his domain -- the Time Stalker! His dull and faded robes, tattered and worn, covered his dry and withered flesh -- it had been years since he’d pulled back his hood to reveal a face he’d long since forgotten. Even if he remembered his own identity after all these billions of years, who would he reveal it to? Alone in his domain -- alone for time immeasurable -- the Time Stalker revelled in his ultimate victory, seeking only ways to push this final entropy backwards through the ages, to the beginning of Time itself, so that he’d be Master of All! Of course, there were those who stood against him. Time and again, the Horde of Future-Heroes had thwarted his plans. Misguided children! Noble Cockroaches! Their lifespans were barely more than a blink of the eye to one such as the Stalker -- yet, they’d disrupted his every effort. Inspired by the heroic exploits of the teenaged Superion a thousand years in their past, these youths banded together to unite their planets and carry on the Superionic Ideal, becoming the Horde of Future-Heroes! So many of them, easily two dozen at the least. Each of these heroes had one distinctive super power that made them unique and for a while a teenaged Superion traveled to the future to join them in their adventures. The Time Stalker knew the way to strike at them was through their relationship with Superion. Remove Superion from the equation and the Horde would have no inspiration. He’d tried many times -- in one instance, the Stalker had gone so far as to snag a moment of time itself to create a Pocket Universe, where Superion hadn’t gained his powers until adulthood, thereby negating the motivation for the Horde’s formation. Even THIS did not stop the Future-Heroes -- it merely made a continuity blip that repaired itself (and blew itself up again) multiple times, a recurring Crisis, rebooting and three-booting the Universe over and over. And STILL the Horde existed! There had to be some way to stop them... At that moment, something in the Time-Viewing Globe caught his eye. On one of the Multiple Earths, a trans-dimensional portal had opened. Upon closer examination, the Time Stalker saw what had happened, not only to the Superion of that world, but to the Justice Club as well! Maybe this was the tool he needed to defeat the Horde… or at least distract them. It took little effort to divert the portal and bring the entity using it here, to the Time Stalker’s domain. As it shimmered with an almost mirror-like finish, the oval-shaped portal opened and a being fell through, as if pushed. A male humanoid with a hyper-augmented musculature and oversized genitalia. An impressive specimen to be sure, dressed in purple spandex shorts that were banded at the waist and thigh with golden metallic bands, somehow emphasizing his endowment, purple boots, no gloves -- but golden gauntlets -- no shirt either, but somehow a metallic lightning bolt seemed attached to (a part of?) the skin of his massive pecs, a short white cape held around his thick neck by a golden tassel, and a bejewelled crown atop his square-jawed, handsome head. Wary, but not fearful, the man stood, taking in his surroundings, facing the hooded entity before him. “Where am I?” he growled. “And what are you? Death?” The Time Stalker chuckled, something he so rarely did, he couldn’t remember the last time -- so many years -- “I do not reap,” he said in his dry, raspy voice. “I sow. I sow carnage and entropy. The End of Time is so much more than mere death, mortal. I am the Time Stalker and this is my domain. And you, King Rex, as you would have yourself known, will soon be a tool for me in the defeat of the Horde of Future Heroes.” “I serve no one’s will but my own,” said the King, crossing his arms before his massive chest -- impressive, to be sure -- striking a posture of resistance. “I seek not your permission,” the Stalker hissed. “You will play out my orchestrations without even realizing it. Just by being yourself, King Rex, you will be my unwitting pawn.” And with that, Rex lashed out, opening his arms and releasing his power -- wave after wave of invisible mass, intent on weighing his opponent down. The power that had felled Superion. The Time Stalker shook it off as if it were little more than a pest, a nuisance. Deep within the shadows of his hood, Rex could almost see his smile. “Yes,” the Stalker said quietly. “That will do perfectly. But first, taste MY power…” With but a slight gesture, the Stalker deflected Rex’s attack and launched his own, a blast of chronal energy that hit Rex square in the chest -- it would’ve knocked him over if Rex’s mighty legs hadn’t already been braced. As he felt it rush past him, the chronal energy seemed to wash away the years as it went, like coarse sand would erode an object rushing by. When it was over, he wasn’t sure exactly what was different at first -- yes, he was slightly smaller, his muscles leaner, but still massive. No… it was his skin -- his skin was tighter! Tighter, smoother, softer, like when he’d been a boy. And that was when Rex realized -- the Time Stalker’s chronal blast had made him younger! He was no longer a full-grown man in the prime of his life -- now Rex was barely more than a teen. A hyper-muscular, over-endowed teen, to be sure, but a teen nonetheless -- maybe twenty on the outside. Even the hair on his head was youthful, shaggy and unkempt. And was he sporting a weak, teenaged beard? “What the hell…?” Even his voice had more tenor -- less of an edge. The Stalker was pleased. “Perfect,” he mumbled, chuckling. “Perfect. You still retain your powers and abilities, of course. And your lusts -- at your new age even more difficult to resist. But now you’ll fit in with the Horde, a contemporary, and so they’ll accept you. After that, it’s only a matter of time -- and time is what I know so well. And what I have so much of.” The Stalker made another gesture and a new trans-dimensional portal opened, shimmering just like the first, the one that had brought Rex here. “Go then and spread your sexual chaos,” the Stalker schemed aloud, “but not as King Rex, not yet. Not at YOUR new age.” He chuckled. “It’s not trite enough for them. Let them know you instead as Power Teen.” As he spoke, the Time Stalker seemed to grow, nearly eight feet tall by the time he said, “Do this for me and I promise you a reward that will shake the very foundation of continuity.” “Reward?” Rex asked, finally interested. Rex felt himself pushed, though there was no one to push him. But he felt pushed, for sure -- hands on his chest, shoving him into the trans-dimensional portal. He tumbled backwards through it -- his super-strength nothing in the face of this force -- and landed, unceremoniously, on his ass, on a weird sort of plastic-feeling pavement, so different from the decayed, unstable sandy surface at the End of Time. This new place was super-clean, sleek in a souped-up, science-fiction kind of way, notable for the absence of litter and pollution as much as the bright, metallic colors. As he stood, brushing some errant sand from his muscular ass, Rex realized that he was standing on a Pavilion of sorts, and there were quite a number of people milling about. Young people -- some of them in their early teens -- some of them not even HUMAN -- dressed in garash, stylized superhero garb. “Attention, Candidates…” The announcement caused Rex to turn around, where her faced a large building that was shaped like the back-end of a retro-styled rocketship sticking up out of the ground, brandished with a large letter “H”. In front of the “H”, a holographic banner read, “Horde Tryouts Today.” ********** HORDE HEADQUARTERS -- Earth The Horde Future-Hero Pavillion Before Rex could gather his thoughts, the announcement continued. “Welcome to Horde Membership Tryouts. We will begin our initial screening here on the Future-Hero Pavilion. When it’s your turn, tell us your real name, your planet of origin, the codename you’d like and a summation of your powers. Be prepared to demonstrate your powers as well. If you pass this phase, you will go inside the clubhouse for the next stage. Thank you and good luck.” Rex smiled as he realized the obviousness of the Time Stalker’s plot -- still, he wasn’t sure why he should play along. Infiltrating and corrupting this Horde could be a fun way to spend the day, no doubt, but that a being like the Time Stalker wanted so badly for him to do it, he wondered if he should. Really… what was in it for him? And then, as if on cue, the clubhouse doors opened and two of the Horde emerged. Because of his position -- Rex was near the back of the crowd -- he had to stand on the balls of his feet to see. On the left was something that looked like a human and a computer were merged together -- blue skin, with obviously fake light blue hair, but the rest of him was almost completely bio-circuitry, living, breathing AI. He wore a sleeveless white jumpsuit, tucked into light gray boots -- a heavy belt strapped around his waist that seemed to have multiple controls and functions. “Smartiak 6,” someone next to Rex said, in awe of the being. “He has a computer mind -- a twelfth-level intelligence with an all-too human heart.” He DID look like a computer had fucked someone, thought Rex -- but it was fleeting. As he tried to imagine what kind of cock Smartiak 6 had, he saw Smartiak’s companion. It couldn’t be…? Yet, somehow it was. Superion. But not the Superion that Rex had transformed into His Royal Consort -- this was a younger version, at least a decade younger than the Superion Rex knew. How could Superion exist as a youth a thousand years in his adult future? Was this what the Time Stalker had been talking about when he’d said Rex would “shake the foundation of continuity”? This youthful Superion had the same costume as his adult-self, the same S-shield across his chest -- but he had the build of a highly-trained teen athlete, a gymnast or a swimmer, lean and tight -- spectacular abs, Rex noted -- not the heavy musculature he carried as an adult, even before Rex augmented it. But it couldn’t be…? “It couldn’t be…” Rex mumbled aloud. The creature next to him took that as a cue to talk. “It is!’ the creature said, waving one of its many hands. “Everyone knows the legend: inspired by the deeds of the universal hero Superion, the Horde began as a club for young superheroes. At first, it was just a few Adventures. But as they became popular, the three founders when back in time a thousand years and recruited a youthful Superion to join their ranks, eventually becoming known as TEEN SUPERION AND THE HORDE OF FUTURE-HEROES!” “‘TEEN Superion’...?” “I know,” the creature said, giggling. “Isn’t he DREAMY?” Teen Superion was dreamy, indeed, Rex thought, glancing back at the young hero as he and Smartiak 6 stepped onto an electric platform hovering under the banner reading “Horde Tryouts today” -- his sleek musculature and those teeny, tiny hips, Rex just wanted to pound his hole. “Good Morning, Candidates!” Teen Superion announced in a strong, youthful voice. “We want to welcome you to this first round of Horde Tryouts. When it’s your turn, tell us your name, your proposed code-name, your planet of origin and be prepared to demonstrate your power.” There were quite a number of applicants, although most had little to offer in the way of actual power. Many seemed to be more sight-gag oriented, superfans with ridiculous code-names like “Fruit-Ripening Boy”, “Chlorine Kid” or “Ida Eyeballs”. Smartiak 6 would deny them and then Teen Superion would make some sort of comforting quip. Still, the hopeful would-be heroes were disappointed -- they’d lost the universe’s biggest talent show. And then they called on Rex, who suddenly realized he’d been standing in line without knowing it. As he approached the platform, he saw that same look in Teen Superion’s eyes that he‘d become so accustomed to when men first saw Rex’s hyper-muscled body and hyper-masculine endowment -- that moment of shock and envy. Of course, Teen Superion had no way of knowing that Rex had already enslaved his future self. That made this moment all the more delightful. “I am Rex of Earth,” he said with some amusement, legs spread, hands on hips, displaying himself proudly. “Code name: Power Teen. Aside from super-strength and my obvious physical prowess, I have the ability to give and take mass and strength away from someone. If I were battling Teen Superion, for example, I could take sap him of his strength -- or, if he were my ally, I could ADD to his strength, if such a thing were ever necessary.” “Fascinating,” said Smartiak 6, obviously contemplating Rex’s potential like Rex was a chess-piece. “Can you give us a demonstration?” asked Teen Superion, hopping down off the platform, a confident smirk on his face. Although the same height, Rex outweighed Teen Superion by at least fifty muscular pounds. Still, the super-teen held his stance, defiant -- Rex couldn’t help but remember Teen Superion’s adult self kneeling at Rex’s feet and sucking Rex’s mighty cock. Now it looked like Rex was going to get to seduce Superion all over again. The thought turned him on, regardless of the temporal chaos it would cause. “Gladly,” said Rex, lifting his arms in a grappling stance, as if he were about to begin a wrestling match. Moving so quickly he was little more than a blur, Teen Superion zipped behind Rex and put him in a Full Nelson -- it was like being in an iron vice, immovable and solid. Rex seemed helpless. “Well, I guess that ends that pretty quickly,” Teen Superion said smugly -- Rex enjoyed the feeling of Teen Superion pressing against him. “Not quite yet,” said Rex, bending his arm and gently touching Teen Superion. Almost immediately, Teen Superion’s hold weakened. “What’s happening?” he asked, suddenly breathless. Left with less strength than a normal human, Teen Superion’s Full Nelson was easily broken by Rex, as he effortlessly flipped the young hero onto his back on the Pavilion before them. He held Teen Superion against the ground with just his flat hand. “Now what do you think?” he quietly asked the helpless hero. Teen Superion smiled weakly. “I propose Full Horde Membership!” he said. [CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 2 -- COMING SOON!] *********** From the Fanzine Column ABSMAN BLABS, MAN: A “LASS”, A “LAD”, ALAS AND ALACK A word about the HORDE OF FUTURE-HEROES. Debuting in 1958 in PASSIVE COMICS #247, the original eight-page HORDE story was largely a throwaway idea -- Teen Superion, visited by three Super Teens from the future, is invited to join their superhero club. After initially failing in some rigged initiation tests, there are knowing laughs, and that’s the end of that. All in all, a very simple and childlike adventure, reminiscent of most PASSIVE COMICS from the Silver Era. The Horde caught on though, and readers demanded more. The Horde’s adventures began appearing regularly in TEEN SUPERION comics as a backup, but became so popular that the book’s name changed to TEEN SUPERION AND THE HORDE OF FUTURE-HEROES and eventually, with issue #259 took over the title completely, renamed simply THE HORDE. Most of the Horde Members are identified to be in their mid-to-late teens during this era -- but it wasn’t until the 1970’s that the Horde had aged enough to include “Space Opera” elements into the storyline -- romance, intrigue and betrayal. Hot artist Matt Grail launched himself to fame bringing sweeping changes to the Horde’s costumes and modernizing the design of the 30th century -- making it look strangely like a sci-fi disco-fest -- lots of skin and lots of hair (on the girls and the boys! [Magnetic Boy’s black corset got this writer through puberty!]) Horde members married, had children, yet still kept the Lad/ Lass, Boy/ Girl honorifics in their code names. (With the exception of the infamous “Adult Horde” story that appeared way back in PASSIVE COMICS #354-355) Horde fans did the math -- there had been 14 Horde Leaders with a leader’s term lasting roughly one year. So by that measure, many of the Horde were in their mid-to-late 20’s still calling themselves “Boy” and “Girl” to “honor their inspiration”, Teen Superion. A time may come in the future when the Horde Members update their names to match their adulthood, but there are many who believe an Adult Horde may not have the same magic and innocence -- perhaps that’s true. It certainly wouldn’t have the same impact to see the Adult Horde dealing with the horrors of middle-age, chronic pain and male-pattern baldness -- but maybe a little more adult tone would be okay. Let them have SOME sex -- especially Smartiak 6, doesn’t a computer deserve a little love?

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Well, here we are again -- fifteen years later and I’m kicking out some sequel. Weirdly, I’ve had a Parasite story brewing in my head for years, but this Bizarro story found its way out instead. Not a long one, I promise -- five parts. I just enjoy playing with these characters. (Previously, in THE NEW SUPERMEN: Superman has left Earth, seeking his destiny among the stars. To protect the planet -- and the American Way -- Superman has selected 100 of the nation’s best police officers to take his place. Imbibing them with a serum to give them Kryptonian powers, plus a massive dose of solar radiation, these men transformed into hypermasculine superheroes. These “Super-Cops” were just adjusting to their new, super-powered bodies [and their inability to have sex with normal humans], when set upon by a plot to trap them through that very sexual weakness by Lex Luthor. Though nearly succumbing to Luthor’s manipulations, the Super-Cops ultimately foiled his plan. Now, nearly a year later, there is a feeling of normalcy and routine, even if the New Supermen had to make some sexual compromises.) Pt1 REMOTE UTAH The helicopter had been flying for an hour without seeing even the slightest hint of civilization. These remote locations had their advantages in terms of regulations and governmental oversight, but they were a gigantic pain in the ass to travel to. Finally, just as the late afternoon sun was casting long shadows across the mountains, the destination came in sight -- the LexCorp symbol obvious on the helipad. That Lex Luthor himself was here only indicated how close they were to success. He and his bodyguard were greeted at the helipad by the Chief Scientist, Dr. Teng, the windrush of the slowing heli-blades blowing his white lab jacket up like Marilyn Monroe on a subway grating. “Greetings, Mr. Luthor,” he shouted over the din. “We are honored to have you here -- we have shown much success in cloning…” “Yes, I know,” Luthor said bluntly, walking past the doctor toward the facility. “Take me to him.” The three entered the facility and immediately turned to a series of elevators. Had Teng not been the one with the ID card to summon the elevator, it would almost appear as if Luthor had no use for him at all. They plunged underground, deep enough that they felt their ears pop from the pressure change. Teng spent much of the time trying not to stare at Luthor’s beautiful female bodyguard, Mercy -- she spent much of the time trying to resist the urge to kick him in the balls. Finally, they arrived in the Sub-Basement Labs, easily a mile below the surface, the elevator sliding open silently. Teng motioned, “This way,” though Luthor already knew where he was going. There, in the center of the main lab, surrounded by cables and monitors and unidentifiable machines, was what could only be described as a huge glass tube, large enough to hold the overly-muscular male that floated inside it. “As you can see, Mr. Luthor, the clone is nearly ready.” The clone wore a breathing apparatus, so its face wasn’t clear, but the body more than gave away its genesis -- it was clearly a clone of Superman, the original Man of Steel -- regardless of the tight S-shield compression shirt and red speedo it wore. “And the triggers are in place?” Luthor asked, examining it. “The commands? Will it obey me?” Dr. Teng placed his hand almost affectionately on the tube. “Everything has gone according to plan, Mr. Luthor. The mental programming has been put in place. There is no reason to believe this clone won’t be completely under your control -- your own personal Superman. Now… to be fair… we haven’t run any tests since the… uh… virus was introduced…” Luthor looked at him quizzically. “Why would that make any difference?” Teng looked uncomfortable. “Well, it’s an unexpected variable. As you can see, since it was introduced, the clone’s testicles have swollen to at least five times their normal size. We had to create special trunks that would fit them…” Mercy rolled her eyes at Teng’s awkwardness -- men put so much unnecessary importance on their genitals. Bigger balls meant a bigger target to kick as far as Mercy was concerned. “It’s fine, Teng,” Luthor said, glancing casually at the clone’s big gonads. “It’s all part of the virus.” “This is the most success we’ve ever had cloning Kryptonian DNA, sir. It seems a little far-reaching to unnecessarily add…” “Are you questioning me, Teng?” Luthor asked calmly -- Mercy seemed to stand even more at alert. “No, Sir!” Teng said a little too quickly. He knew what happened to people who fell on the bad side of Lex Luthor. “I simply counsel caution. We’re not even certain about the stability of the cloning process, much less…” “It’ll be fine,” Luthor said. “Even if he only kills one of them, it’ll have been worth the money. Release him.” “But, Sir, he’s only at fifty-percent -- he hasn’t been exposed to sufficient sunlight…” “RELEASE HIM!” Nervously, Dr. Teng went to the console. Before pressing the button, he shut his eyes and said a silent prayer -- even Luthor couldn’t control his thoughts -- all he could do now was hope for the best. He pressed the release button. As they watched the fluid drain from the tube, Luthor mumbled, “FInally -- a superman of my own…” He knew it was only a matter of time before they could clone a super-body to transfer Luthor’s MIND into -- then he’d personally settle the score. One step at a time. The tube raised, taking the breathing apparatus away with it, leaving the clone standing, semi-dazed as it came to consciousness, dressed only in the tiny, tight Superman shirt and stuffed red speedos. The clone looked pale, having never been exposed to sunlight -- it resembled an albino bodybuilder. It stood uncertainly on its feet, absorbing its surroundings, then looked down and noticed itself. It ran its hands over its muscular torso, flexing its biceps and smiling at their size. The process of self-discovery gave the clone an erection. “Horny,” it mumbled… and began to clumsily masturbate. Luthor moved to take control, standing before the clone with his arm held out before him in a “stop” motion -- easily a foot shorter than the behemoth, Luthor barely came to its pecs. “I am Lex Luthor,” he stated firmly. “Your creator. You will obey me!” The clone looked at Luthor with a semblance of recognition, smiling slightly, but making no move to stop playing with itself. “What’s wrong with it?” Luthor asked Teng. “Why isn’t it listening to me?” “It could be any number of things,” Teng said hastily, carefully walking toward Luthor but making sure to face the clone. “It could be the Kryptonian gene-stock -- it could be the virus you introduced…” “Horny…” “There’s so much we don’t know about Superman…” “SUPERMAN!” the clone cried -- and shot a load that nearly hit Luthor and Teng. The clone’s orgasm lasted nearly half-a-minute, going on and on. And the longer it lasted, the more the clone’s moans turned to giggles -- it was as if his intelligence, not his ejaculate, that was cumming out of his oversized balls. “Oh my dear Lord!” whispered Teng, stepping back. “What is happening? All I did was mention Superman…” “SUPERMAN!” the cloned cried. “ME WANT SUPERMAN! ME WANT FUCK SUPERMAN!” “What…?” “Yes!” Luthor said, stepping toward the clone. “Superman. You fuck Superman!” “Mr. Luthor!” “Mercy, shut him up.” Before Teng could speak another word of protest, Mercy kicked him in the stomach, doubling him over -- she would’ve preferred her target to be his balls, but whatever. Teng collapsed, moaning quietly -- scientists rarely put up a fight -- curled up on the floor. Luthor remained focused on the clone. “You find Superman,” he said. “You fuck Superman.” “ME FUCK SUPERMAN!” “Yes!” “SOOO HORNY…” “So fuck Superman... stupid.” “YES! FUCK SUPERMAN STUPID!” Suddenly, the clone bucked his hips, orgasming again -- the front of his speedo soaking in his cum, dripping to his feet. His laughter was the giggle of a child. “FUCK SUPERMAN STUPID,” he laughed. “YES… ME MAKE SUPERMAN HORNY AND STUPID!” “Okay,” Luthor smiled. “Sure. Go and fuck Superman stupid.” “ME GO! ME GO FUCK SUPERMAN STUPID!” They stood there staring at each other, the clone with an empty grin as he gently stroked himself. “Go NOW…” Luthor said, nearly exasperated. “YES!” the clone said, as if having the idea was brilliant. “ME GO NOW!” And with that, the clone looked around and, seeing only the elevator, bound toward it with a speed that belied his size. Before Luthor could react, the clone ripped the elevator doors open with his super-strength and then began ascending the shaft by lifting himself hand-over-hand up the cable. They stood there in the silence of the lab for nearly a minute, listening to the clone work his way up the mile-long shaft -- he clearly hadn’t realized he could fly (or perhaps he hadn’t been powered up enough) -- then, from very high above them, they heard the groan of creaking metal, a loud, childish laugh, and then the wreck of the elevator car crashed into the opening. “Looks like we’re going to be here awhile,” said Luthor, wryly. None of them laughed. NEXT PART