The Iron Bug - Part V

[arbotimus]

Oh boy, it has been quite a while since I 've worked on this story.  This update comes in two parts.  This one is the plot-heavy one.  Feel free to skip through at your leisure if that is not your jam.

 

Part I  Part II  Part III Part IV

 

Part V  --  The Well

We have lingered in the chambers of sea

            By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

            Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

                                                        - T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

 

The clouds were painted flat and grey against the sky, leaving a muddy warmth in their wake.  The pale morning light that made it through lent a calm air to the morning, the blue-hued rays filtering through the needles of trees.  It was a day like any other.  I waited outside Charlie’s house for him to leave for class.  I had no plan.  Short of makeshift handcuffs, I was out of ideas.  He could probably knock me out at any time, and I had no idea how he did it.  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to ask nicely.

He opened the door wearing a white wife beater that was just tight enough to show his abs through the fabric.  When his verdant eyes turned to face me he looked amused.

“You look different, little man,” he said.  

I stared at him blankly.  I wasn’t sure what to do.  He chuckled.  “What is it you want from me anyways?  You made your wish and it has nothing to do with mine.” He said.

 “What are you talking about?” I inquired bluntly.  “I never made any wish.  Frankly I have no idea what’s going on…although I’m not complaining, I guess,” I stated, rubbing my thick hands across the deep, shredded crevices of my abs.

God, what was happening to me.

“Sorry, that’s become a force of habit lately,” I mumbled.

“You’ve never been to the well?” Charlie asked.

“No.  What well?” I asked impatiently.

“Then what happened to you?”

He seemed genuinely interested, the amusement on his face giving way to curiosity.  And he clearly knew a lot more than I did.  It couldn’t hurt to share.

I described the metal bug, the insatiable desire to lift, the ravenous hunger, the euphoric growth, the second bite, and the dream.  Well, the relevant parts of the dream.  I also left out the parts about Delilah.

He gazed at me intently before breaking into a smile.  Then he took a deep breath.  “Well, so much for class today.  We’re going on a field trip.” Charlie said, dropping his backpack inside the door and then shutting it for good.  He stretched and I could see the soft shadows of his triceps that I had felt in my dream.

I was bewildered.  Apparently my ignorance was enough to warrant his help. 

“Get ready for a bit of a hike.  It’s not too far, but more than a quick walk.”  After that he started ahead off without me, and I jogged to catch up.

I followed him quietly as he led me through the neighborhood to a trail into the forest.  It was a path I had run a few times before.  Tall evergreens surrounded us, soft and inviting in the pale morning light.  I spoke up once and he looked at me stolidly, telling me to “Just wait until we get there.”  The rest of our trek was conducted in the relative silence of the forest.  Only the frogs made sounds as they fell asleep for the day.

I tried to focus on our surroundings instead of gaping awkwardly at his chiseled backside.   I worried he would catch me staring and knock me out.  Maybe I was just being paranoid.  Squirrels ran through the leaf litter and up the trees, eying us cautiously as we made our way up the path.

After about forty minutes we came to a unique collection of ovoid rocks that were stacked against one another, and he led us off the path to wade through the remnants of a trail overrun with forest scrub.  I was forced to watch him as he guided us through, and I found that the longer I focused on him the less I was able to focus on anything else.  There was a certain magnetism about the way he moved, confident and alluring.  My eyes ate up his every motion hungrily.  Everything about him was perfect.  His back sculpted like the smoothest stone, his walnut colored hair reflecting beautifully in the sunlight, the beefy heads of his calves separating every time he took a stop, the sweat rolling off his caramel tanned skin, his clothes hugging his tight body with every motion.  Amongst all the beauty of the forest, including my own, he outshined us all, a guiding light in the darkness.  His radiance enraptured me, made me feel whole.

A branch swept across my face, forcing my attention away from Charlie.  The trance was lifted, and the rest of the world came rushing back into view.  I felt on my face where I had been struck but could not find a cut or any pain.  Another part of the transformation, I guessed.  I wondered silently if anything could hurt me.

When I looked back up at Charlie he seemed like an ordinary person again.  Still just as attractive, but I was no longer transfixed by him.  I found that if I stared for too long, however, I started to lose clarity again.  It was best to focus elsewhere and follow the sound of him moving through the scrub.

The last of the wildflowers were wilting in the mild summer heat.

Another half an hour of trekking found us in a small clearing that was mostly shaded save for a few sharp slivers of sunlight that pierced through.  Charlie stopped and took a long, deep breath.  Leaf litter from the surrounding trees covered the ground, but few plants grew here.  The ones that did had long, thin leaves almost like needles and vibrant red flowers that let their stamens out towards the ground.

In the center of the clearing stood a stone structure resembling a well.  The clean cut stones were a deep, mottled grey that I did not recognize.  The well overflowed with water, and it spilled into a shallow pool of the same stone that encircled the structure.  The water that flowed out seemed unnaturally dark, like it refused to let any light leave its shallow prison.  A wooden covering was held by thin posts ornately carved with various animal and plant designs.  It looked like it had been built long after the primary structure by someone other than the original architect.  A small wooden bucket hung from the roof as well, although it did not seem to serve much purpose.

“Welcome to the wishing well,” Charlie said with false ceremony.

“I…don’t get it, honestly.  Why are we here?” I said, perplexed.

“Just go up to it.  You’ll have to take your shoes off and put your feet into the water to look inside.  Then you’ll see.”

I agreed reluctantly.  The whole structure, although simple enough, gave me an ominous feeling.  Light and sound seemed to move oddly through the clearing because of it, sometimes enhanced and sometimes subdued but never what was expected.  The well itself had a certain Lovecraftian alienness about it, as though whoever built it had tried to create something familiar but had failed in the details and instead made something entirely foreign.  I steeled myself for whatever fate awaited me, taking my shoes off before the water.

What the hell, I thought, rubbing my cheek where the branch had hit me.  I am practically invincible now, anyways.

The inky water was smooth and cool on my feet.  The flow from the well gave me the impression of wading through the tide rather than standing in a pool, and I noticed that the water drained into holes along the pool’s stone edges.  The closer I came to the well the more everything around it seemed to go dark in my vision.  Soon the only thing I could see was the stone and the water, and my feet moving through it.  The rest of the world had faded into a giant expanse, endless, vast, and humming with a vibrancy of life despite its emptiness. 

I rested my hands on the well, feeling the cool rush of dark water flow over them, and looked inside.  Images swirled and began to take shape and form against the darkness.  Soon I was a part of them, as though I was in a dream.

I could not tell at first if the visions I saw were scenes from the future or memories.  At times they felt like both.  Each one was a snapshot from my life, not always in order but generally progressing forward.  They came slowly at first, then faster and faster until they began to blur together.  Important moments and small moments rubbed up against one another in a ceaseless barrage: graduation from university, a gentle kiss from a stranger, my election to head of an engineering firm, the desert view from atop a tall rock, my sister’s funeral.  In every image I was the same age, and as time sped past I was oblivious to its effects.  I traveled the world and experienced more than most do in a lifetime, summiting mountains and skyscrapers, exploring though canyons and across highways until I felt there was no more to see.  I met others, many of them, from all walks of life.  I talked with them, laughed with them, loved them, fucked them.  I grew from each of them, and I cherished every one of them.

In the midst of my travels, in a dark city alley lined with high adobe walls, I found a mirror.  The humid air and sandy floor of the alley faded as I gazed into it.  The reflection was my own, but I had grown to titanic proportions.  At least twice my current size, and all muscle.  The shelf of my pecs eclipsed the sun for those who stood under me, and the strength a single arm was enough to topple buildings.  I was invincible, the epitome of eroticism and power.  In the mirror’s visions, I filled my time with prodigious displays of my boundless strength, lifting ships with the flick of my wrist, stopping bullets and tanks that would stand in my way, eating and drinking and fucking whomever I pleased.  I was indomitable in the world of men, a god for others to worship. 

I looked away from the mirror and continued on my own path.  But the visions from the mirror stuck with me, haunting me.

Time continued its march and I moved with it effortlessly, but the others did not.  I watched my friends and loved ones die, and new ones sprang up to take their place.  The stars continued to turn overhead, but I stopped counting the revolutions of the earth and the numbers of days that passed.  Time was just an excuse for everything not to happen all at once.

I watched the world change as my body refused to age.  The seas rose and dried up, technologies advanced beyond what I thought possible, the natural world around us dwindled and was restructured in our image, countries rose and fell in what felt like minutes, and soon we left the earth behind.  Eventually I jumped across stars with the rest of our species through the grandness of the cosmos, watching patiently what became of us as we traipsed from galaxy to galaxy. 

And just when I felt myself start to slip into a boundless infinity a hand pulled me out from the well.  I inhaled sharply, as though I had just been rescued from the bottom of a pool.

“What did you see?” he asked calmly.

“I was immortal.  I saw everything.”

Charlie regarded me cautiously.  “That’s a new one.  Must have been why you were out for so long.

“Look, just be careful.  The well shows you the wish you want, but it doesn’t always grant it.  Mostly it works out, but sometimes it fails and things get tricky.  That’s probably where your bugs came from, too.  Whoever made that wish may not have even been bitten.”

I paused, considering what monstrous incarnation of eternity would spring forth from the well to grant my own wish.

Finally I regained the courage to speak.  “What did you wish for?” I asked.

“I haven’t.  I’m like you.  The product of someone else’s wish.”

I stared at him blankly.

“When my mom was young she found this well by accident.  Just like you and everyone who comes across it, it showed her what she wanted most, although she didn’t know it at the time.  She says she saw the most beautiful woman in the world, one that no man could resist.  When she asked the well to make it real, a branch grew from the water and offered her a fruit.

“She got her wish.  Not only was she beautiful, but men became obsessed with her.  She drove them mad.  And when she spoke, she could ask them to do anything she wanted.”

“Like what you did with me?” I asked.

He nodded.  She had asked to become Helen but had become a Siren instead.  And apparently it was heritable.

“The way her wish was granted, she never knew if men loved her or were just lost in a trance.  But she managed to fall in love with my dad, somehow, and they lived together long enough to have me.

“Then one day while he was working on his car he cut his arm pretty deep, and when he looked at her she was a stranger.  It took him a long time just to remember who she was, and after he couldn’t even look at her.  They split after that.  That’s the short version anyhow.”

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“She still lives here with me.  She rarely goes out now.  Too many eyes watching.  Now she only talks with the others who have been to the well.  Most of them online.  They tend to scatter.”

“What about you, then?  Have you ever looked in the water?”

“No, I haven’t.  Too risky.  I don’t have it even a quarter as bad as she does,” he said, gesturing down to his body, “And you can barely even look at me for more than five minutes.”  I blushed.  I wasn’t sure if he had noticed.  “I have my whole life to think about what my wish will be.  There’s no rush.”

“So I could wish for everything to go back to normal?”

“I don’t know.  Whoever or whatever built this well doesn’t seem to need it anymore, so we can’t ask questions.  We only know what we know from the wishes we’ve made. 

“Look, I only brought you here so you could understand what’s happening to you.  It probably would have drawn you here anyways, even if I hadn’t shown you.  That’s what happened to me, sort of like your dream.  I can’t stop you from making your wish, but you should know it doesn’t always go according to plan.”

I thought to argue, but it was useless.  He had made up his mind.

And so we left the clearing and headed home in silence once more.  The siren’s son led me from the water, safe to dry land.

      --

The night was dark from thick cloud cover and an absent moon.   I had spent all day packing, throwing away most of my clothes that wouldn’t fit anymore.  I was already a day and a half late, and I tried to rush but I found it hard to focus.  My mind was preoccupied with the well.  My head buzzed with the wish that I would make, what, if anything, I would tell Delilah, and the behemoth that had stared back at me in the mirror.  If I wanted to, I could ask for it.

But that was someone else’s wish, I had to remind myself.

Although, even still…

I loved the way the downcast lighting reflected off of my body, the way every single crevice formed by my impressive musculature made a deep shadow.  I thought about how I could make men cum just by letting them worship me, how even my fingers had the strength to bend metal with ease, and how the hard flesh under my skin was now akin to the metal that I lifted.

Pre leaked ceaselessly from my hard cock as I subtly flexed and explored what my body had become.

--

My flashlight barely lit the forest path as I made my way out to the well.  I got lost a few times, having to turn back before I found the rock formation I was looking for.  I stumbled my way through the trail, freshly beaten by our steps from this morning, and found my way to the clearing.

The red flowers glowed with a soft phosphorescence in the darkness of the night.  Only a few scarce stars were visible overhead.

I took a deep breath, removed my shoes and placed my feet into the water.  The temperature had not changed, and against the cool night air it was warm on my feet.

The infinite expanse opened up to me again, my surroundings even darker than the night I came from.  I saw the same visions pass before my eyes, including the mirror.  And when it was done I stood silently for a few moments, the weight of eternity on my shoulders.

Then I made my wish.

[hardmuscl4life]

Really excellent writing.  I've always enjoyed this story and was so pleased to see you had posted two chapters today.  Thank you so much, well done!

george

[leathermuscle]

Yheres hoping he grows Huuuuge beyond compare hung and powerful

[Ro20316]

this was so good now did he wish for that eternal msucle life or he made another wish.

[Neonando]

That was great! I'm wondering if maybe the wish could affect (indirectly, or not planned) to Charlie. 

Glad that you continue the story!

[Kymuscleboy]

This has been an amazing story! I'm lucky in that I didn't discover it until these last two parts were posted. Otherwise, the wait between parts Three and Four may have killed me!  It's funny that when one starts reading it, it seems like it's going to be a muscle growth take on the Spider-Man genre (cleverly alluded to in the story!), which by itself could be very good, but then it become so much more than that. The plot line with Charlie, the wishing well, and the dreams are so imaginative and add so much interesting detail to the story.  Plus, I'm still waiting to see if the neighbor, Delilah, figures more into it before it's through. 

Here's hoping there's more to come soon!