growth Baring Bones: A Halloween Story - Chapter 1

[Shahrazad2]

Baring Bones: A Halloween Story - Chapter 1

By Martin J. Manco

 

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4 (And Bestiary Notes)

 

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Nobody really believed that the old Higgins Manor was haunted. Calling the place a manor was actually a stretch, since, though it had two floors with high ceilings, columns in front, and was very wide, it had maybe 10 rooms. One of those had been reconstructed into a chapel when the building was used as a church camp (whatever that involved) years ago. The building sat on what is now a small farm, used for growing pumpkins, christmas trees, and the like for various seasonal events. The Higgins family was very business oriented and hardworking, though their serious nature concealed a great enjoyment of fun as well. For that reason, they decided to use the "manor" not just for their annual Halloween party, but to put on a children's Halloween show and “Haunted House and Hayride” for the entire month of October. 

I had been part of the kids’ act (a magician, puppeteer, and comedian, often switching costumes and watching the kids), which gave me something to do while I looked for a job that was more lucrative. At 27 years of age, with a Liberal Arts degree and a few grad school courses under my belt, I was a bit at a loss for direction in life. No job really spoke to me. Finding the seasonal position for Halloween was a fun way to earn a bit of extra money on the side while I dealt with the tedious work at an office store during the week. When November rolled around and that job ended, I was invited to a celebratory late Halloween Party in the Manor.

I’ve always loved dressing up in costume, especially for Halloween. With dark brown curly hair, brown eyes, Mediterranean complexion, rapidly-growing stubble, and a height of 6’2,” but no fashion sense to speak of, and a lanky, gangly build, costumes gave me the chance to have some style, for once. Taking advantage of the day after Halloween sales, I found a bunch of props for a really cool fallen angel costume, including dark wings that looked like a mix of bat (with the little claw on the top) and bird (with painted and fabric feathers), a pair of dark feathered wings that slid into place behind my ears, a necklace with a cross and wings dangling from a silvery chain, black denim pants, and a t-shirt with images of a swarm of warring angels taking flight. I looked pretty awesome... especially since the wings were rigged so that by pulling two wires that dangled from the back, I could make them unfold and flap.

I arrived at the party a bit late, and realized I might've made a mistake in coming. Most of my coworkers from the show had families, and had left earlier, and the place mainly held the Higgins family members and a ton of their children's college classmates and friends. If you hadn’t guessed from my costume and job, I’m pretty nerdy, and while not antisocial, I tend to be shy around new people. I sifted through the crowd, being careful not to hit anyone with my wings or get tangled in fake spiderwebs, until I reached the perfect wallflower’s vantage point against the wall, next to a life-size model of Grandpa Munster. That’s when I saw him.

 

In a sea of vampires, fairies, ninja turtles (a surprising number of whom were ladies, some of whom had some pretty creative “half-shells”), and stranger costumes, was a cute, lanky guy. He had black hair, blue eyes, fair skin with a hint or two of freckles, and a sparkling white smile, dressed in a black skintight outfit with a white bone design, making him appear like a very sexy indie skeleton. His slim body, while not particularly powerful or muscular, was long and graceful and strong-looking… and his pants pushed forward enticingly at the groin, just enough to hint at more if only he had been erect, while not being actually obscene in his current state. Sadly, he also had a skeletal girlfriend (although I’ve never seen a skeleton show so much cleavage before, it was a fairly stylish Halloween costume for her). I like straight guys, and am friends with several of them (and their girlfriends or wives). I really wasn’t expecting to meet anyone at this party who would last more than that night (like the couple who kept insisting that I flap my wings for them every time we crossed paths… at most recent count, it was about 8 times so far, and I’d only been there for an hour or so). Finding out that this cute skinny guy was taken and probably wouldn’t be interested in starting a conversation with me was a little disheartening. I walked up to him and said “Nice costume,” and got a “Thanks,” and a nod in response as he turned back to his friends and girlfriend.

 

After that, I decided to wander around. The place was set up with a bonfire in the front, a food/BYOB entrance room, the chapel (which was mostly left alone except for people to cross through it to get to the rest rooms) and a dimly-lit strobe light- filled dance room with a DJ, so I decided to dance and sway to the music for awhile, flapping my wings occasionally just for the fun of it (and to the applause of onlookers).

 

Then I felt an odd chill… like someone walking on my grave. I wandered away from the dance floor, rubbing my hands against my shoulders in an effort to warm myself, only to find that the chill emanated from a particular direction… the chapel. Though that room was stone, it also had very little in the way of doors or windows, so there shouldn’t be any drafts. Stepping past the mannequins decorated like vampires and Frankenstein monsters, I entered the room, feeling the eerie chill seep into my bones. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lights of the room, I spotted an odd green glow coming from the door on the far side, behind the altar. “I don’t remember any lights or special effects in that room,” I murmured, wondering if the Higgins family had put on some special display for the party. “No, that’s not likely… I’m the only one back here, after all,” I said, moving forward and opening the door with a long creak… only to be proven wrong. I wasn’t the only one back there.

 

Skeletal Boy, in all his lithe, black-and-white, skintight glory was standing there, with his back to me (I promise, I only peeked at his butt briefly… just long enough to notice he had one, which is kinda unusual for skinny guys), facing what looked like a floating electrical tennis ball. Whatever it was, the thing was neon green, round, only a few inches in circumference, and seemed to be made of lightning. The chills that ran down my spine earlier were back with a vengeance, and I realized that THIS was the thing that was causing them. The object appeared to bounce and roll about in thin air, dancing and swaying back and forth, and I was shocked to realize Skeletal Boy’s head was turning to follow it… almost as if he was mesmerized!

 

I moved forward, shouting “Look out!” as the strange orb flared and what looked like a green lightning bolt launched itself straight at Skeletal Boy, sinking into his forehead. Skeletal Boy moaned throatily and the orb of light began moving closer to him, his arms stretching out and his stance widening as if he were somehow enjoying the invasion of his mind and body. Electricity danced from his dark wavy hair, down his lanky body, sparking at the joints and the crotch, and then snaking down his legs to his toes. With his costume, I was reminded of the old cartoons where electrified people’s skeletons were visible.

 

My previous momentum carried me forward and I slammed into Skeletal Boy’s lanky (and now electrical) body, sending us both crashing to the ground. The ghostly charge running through him also spread into me, but the electrical flames immediately blazed white instead of green as soon as they touched me, and I felt oddly satisfied, as if I’d just gobbled down a whole bowl of hot fudge sundae. An otherworldly howl of pain resonated through the room, coming not from Skeletal Boy or me, but from the glowing orb, which shrank in on itself and fled, sinking into the wall.

 

Skeletal Boy groaned this time, with a sense of soreness or pain, and I realized that the green flames had vanished along with the orb. “Are you OK,” I asked him, gently shaking his shoulder. He rolled over onto his back, before his blue eyes finally flicked open and he stared up at me. Gulping for a moment, he finally stammered, “I-I th-think so.” Then he winced and stretched, moaning. I looked him over, using my past experience as a lifeguard (another short-lived, not very well-paying job of mine) to examine him for injury. My efforts were short lived, though, as I started to gape at the sight of what I’d initially believed were convulsions. Instead, they turned out to be shuddering flexes of muscles… muscles that began to grow.

 

The entire process was mesmerizing. The skinny college garage band guy began to swell with newfound muscle. His arms became thicker, stretching the black sleeves of his costume, his legs grew longer as his calves and thighs throbbed. His neck appeared slightly thicker and his shoulders visibly broadened, gaining that sloping curve of trapezius muscle that I’d always coveted on athletes. This reshaping of his body caused the neck of his shirt to dip down, revealing the indentation between a growing pair of pecs, as well as a tattoo, in elaborate gothic cursive, with words that I couldn’t make out without lifting his shirt further. His skeleton costume now looked… sexier. The athletic muscles hidden under the sleek black fabric now resembled those of some of the soccer players who lived in my dorm in college. And… was it just my imagination, or was he TALLER as well? I could’ve sworn he was only about 5’10” before, but he now looked closer to six feet. Looking down, I could tell that his muscles and height weren’t the only thing that had grown. His formerly enticing suggestion of a bulge was now… um… more emphatic. MUCH more emphatic.

 

Finally, the growth stopped, and Skeletal Boy stopped moaning, his eyes flickering open. His eyes were faintly glazed, but then cleared and he blinked, looking up at me, around the room, and down at himself… stopping to stare at his new physique. Gulping and clearing his throat (or possibly coughing) he finally stammered, in a voice that was slightly deeper than it had been earlier, “Whuh-whuh-what happened?”

 

Wondering what state his brain was in after what was obviously a bizarre and possibly traumatic (or even hypnotic) event, I decided to answer a question with a question. “What do you remember?”

 

He frowned, thinking, and groaned. “Ugh, I feel like I had way more to drink than I did. I think… I was dancing with Claudia… uh, that’s my girlfriend… when I had to uh, use the head… but I don’t think I ever got there.” He looked confused for a moment, and then his features relaxed oddly, and his voice came out more reverent. “Then I felt… like I needed to go to the light. No one else seemed to notice it, but it was there in the middle of the room, bobbing up and down. When I walked towards it, it drifted back, and I followed. I think I bumped into a guy dressed as a panda, but I can’t remember. I just found myself feeling cold, but knowing the light would make me warmer. It did, and it felt… man, it felt sooooo good. Then it suddenly hurt and then it was gone, and you were there, and then… now… I look like this?” The dreamy sound and expression of his voice cracked and he snapped out of it. “What the hell?!?”

 

Ok, so he knew everything that happened to him, basically, except the why and how. That was a relief. Dealing with someone suffering from trauma would be more than I could handle, particularly if there was some sort of danger around here. I reached out, offering him a hand up, which he took, his grip strong and his forearms flexing and I pulled him to his feet. As he brushed the dust and dirt off his costume, I filled him in with my side of the story. “I was dancing as well… though I didn’t see you guys in the dark. I might’ve gotten distracted by the strobe lights,” I explained with a shrug. “Then I felt something, like a chill. But with everyone dancing in there, it was actually pretty steamy on the dance floor, so I looked around, and felt something cold coming from this direction. I followed it through the other rooms until I came in and saw you looking, uh, mesmerized by this glowing ball of green electricity, like a will-o-wisp… you know, from fairy tales or, um, ghost stories? Little spirits that look like balls of light, which lure people into swamps or off cliffs?” He looked at me like I was crazy, which, admittedly, is what I’d have sounded like if he hadn’t just had a bolt of green lightning through his skull that left him with a totally different body. “Anyway, that’s what it looked like. It then spat a blast of lightning at you, and you, uh, seemed to enjoy it, but I was already moving towards you to try and break you out of it, and I knocked into you. It looked like it was going to electrocute the both of us, when the light changed color and the thing was scared off. It disappeared… I think it sank into the walls of the chapel. Has anything like this ever happened to you before?”

 

He shook his head, dark, tousled hair waving, and replied. “No man… this is some freaky shit going down here.” He then frowned. “You’re the winged guy who liked my costume earlier, but what’s your name? How do you know the hosts?” He then realized that he hadn’t told me his name yet, and stammered, “Um, I’m Kellan. Sorry, ‘bout that.”

 

I smiled and shook his hand. “I’m Angelo. I thought that my costume was appropriate, sorta.” I said with a casual shake of my shoulders and a flap of my wings. His eyes widened and he grinned. “Yeah man, they are pretty cool. I think you’re the only one with a costume with moving parts here tonight.” I then explained about my job, and he nodded. “Sounds cool. I’m a cousin of the main Higgins family,” he explained. “Sooo… what do we do? How do we explain this to, well, everyone? Claudia, the family, etc? And what does growing like this do to by physiology? Are my organs all kinds of messed up now? And… is it going to happen again?”

 

I shrugged helplessly. “At the moment, you know as much as more than I do, dude. I have to wonder though, if maybe I interrupted what the wisp was trying to do to you, and if it’ll be back to try and finish the job.” He shuddered at the thought of that possibility, making his newly-defined muscles flex unintentionally. “I don’t know what to tell you about your girlfriend,” I continued. “But everyone else here shouldn’t notice too much… you’re bigger all over, yeah,” I said, being careful to keep my eyes from lingering. “But you’re just more built than usual… athletic instead of lithe. You should be safe from casual observation, and everyone should take it in size… err, I mean, stride.” I wanted to smack my forehead at my Freudian slip, but Kellan just nodded.  “I guess, dude. I’d better go see. Uh…” he looked at me, before continuing, blushing slightly. “Mind coming with me? I could use some moral support, or someone to confirm what happened so they don’t think I’m crazy.” I agreed, but as we exited, nobody appeared to be looking at Kellan as if they were surprised by his size. There were some girls checking him out (and to be fair, his butt was way more seductive now that it was more muscular and, um, springy), though I didn’t notice any guys doing the same (to my dismay… hanging out with a straight taken hunk and still having no idea if there were any guys who swung my way at this party was increasingly frustrating), but no one seemed shocked at his new musculature or height. Everyone was wrapped up in their individual party activities. When we got to the bonfire outside, where his girlfriend was waiting, she turned around, in her pretty, revealing skeleton outfit and smiled. “Kel’ there you are! When you left me on the dance floor I was wondering if you fell in.” Her eyes then moved to me and her pretty lips turned into a frown. “Is something wrong? Who’s this?”

 

Kellan gulped, but seemed just as confused as I was. “Uh, this is Angelo,” he replied, hesitantly “… but don’t you notice anything… weird about me?” She looked at him like he was joking. “No… I don’t. Should I? If this is a joke to make up for leaving me at the dance floor it isn’t a very funny one.”

 

Kellan shot me a confused and worried look, and I shrugged and suggested, “Maybe ask your other friends or family here,” before Claudia took Kellan’s arm and asked “Are you feeling ok?”

 

Kellan stammered, “Uh, babe, I thought you’d noticed… I saw something spooky… like a glowing light, and it did something to me… something that made me, uh, grow bigger… and buffer.” At this, Claudia only smiled, tossed her blond hair, and said, “What are you talking about silly,” as she placed her hands on his chest, right over his pecs, and slid them down his printed on rib cage to his sleek athlete’s abs, caressing him in front of everyone at the bonfire, and making his eyes flutter and his head tilt back in pleasure. She then leaned in for a kiss, being careful to keep her white and black skeleton face paint from smearing, but seeming to do a good job of arousing Kellan. “You’re the same sexy guy I was interested in since we took that ECON class together. Now come on, I just realized some more of my friends were here, and I want to introduce them to you. What’s the point of being in a couple’s costume if I’m not part of a couple to show it off?” She led him away, looking over her shoulder to smile at me. “Nice to meet you, Angelo… hope you’re having fun at the party!”

 

I was flummoxed… what was going on? Had the other party guests’ minds been tampered with to make them think Kellan looked normal? And if so, why? What purpose would it serve the wisp? For that matter, what purpose would making a guy grow more muscular, other to hammer home how painfully single I was? And why wasn’t I affected? Why had I been able to interrupt the lightning attack, and why had the thing fled from me? “I need more information,” I murmured to myself, before going to look for the Higgins family members I knew.

 

Mr. and Mrs. Higgins, a slightly stiff gray-haired businessman who thought he was funny and his more relaxed, if very practiced housewife, had both been dressed as vampires earlier, but I couldn’t spot either one of them. Maybe they had gone to bed already? It was nearing midnight, after all. I did spot their youngest son, a blond, scruffy guy named Mack, dressed as a hula girl with a coconut bra, but when I approached him to try and ask him questions about ghosts and hauntings and Kellan, he was less than helpful and obviously drunk off his ass. The best I got from him was “I think there’s some old books upstairs,” before he bounced off after an equally inebriated young lady dressed as a sexy nurse.

 

As the upstairs section was dusty, unused, and roped off for the guests, I decided instead to examine the scenes of the crime, so to speak. The dance floor was still dark, lit only occasionally by the flashes of light from the DJ’s booth and these odd, stray glows and flashes of rippling illumination, and sparsely populated, most of the earlier crowds having shifted to some other part of the property as such dancers were wont to do. Heading to the main room of the party, I saw that most of the people, including an embarrassed-looking Kellan and Claudia and her friends (who were a lot more “hands-on” than I’d prefer if I was the one dating Kellan, and who were obviously the source of his embarrassment) were standing around, drinking from red plastic cups or getting refills from the rows of half-full bottles of various alcoholic beverages. It might’ve been an afterimage, but I couldn’t sworn I saw the same rippling lights from the dance floor, centered now around the drinks.

 

I squinted, trying to make out the weird lights, but it seemed like I could only catch them, crimson, snaking, glowing streamers, rippling together, out of the corner of my eye. Deciding to get out of sight of Kellan and his ladies, I followed the flow of the crowd outside. The bonfire was still going strong, and the hayride had just pulled up, depositing partiers and picking up new ones who wanted to ride through the woods. Opting to stay nearby (I’d already ridden the hayride as part of the job) I instead moved closer to the bonfire, basking in the heat on the chilly November evening.  Gazing into the flames, I was shocked to find that that weird rippling red light was emerging… or convening… on the bonfire as well! I tried to move around my field of vision a bit, but focusing on looking out of the corner of your eyes for an extended period of time is more difficult than you’d think. It seemed almost like the glow was moving through the other people around the fire, though. I peered around at the other party guests (three guys dressed as Mario kart characters with a trio of balloons attached to their belts probably won the most original costume in my mind), but nobody was unusually athletic. Had the wisp focused on Kellan for a reason? Why? There were more attractive guys here (or at least, more attractive than his original skinny shape… his new athletic frame gave him an edge).

 

I stopped my train of thought. Why was I so concerned about this? For all I knew, this muscle growth was Kellan’s (and Claudia’s, if she actually remembered it) dream come true. If they were happy with it, who was I to stand in the way of a straight guy I didn’t even know from having unusual growth spurts? If a green muscle fairy light wanted to supercharge all the guys here, well, I could only benefit from that (if only in eye candy). I was feeling pretty confident about my “don’t worry about it” plan, when I remembered that cold feeling that had led me to interrupt Kellan’s… connection… with the green light. That sensation was like the grave, and it felt unpleasant and unnatural. Kellan had seemed to enjoy it, but he’d been hypnotized at the time, and Claudia and the other guests had clearly had their memories messed with. Even if I wasn’t exactly the heroic type, off to save the party guests from mind control, I certainly didn’t want something meddling with my thoughts and memories. It was just practical and self-centered, but it teamed up with my curiosity. If something was going on, I not only wanted to know all about it, I wanted to make sure it was something benevolent.

 

Convinced I was in the right to keep searching, I decided to check out the other parts of the Higgins Manor. I snuck over to the garage behind the dance floor room, feeling the pulse of the loud music. Though full of all manner of odds and ends, some of which I’d never think to keep in a garage, I didn’t encounter anything supernatural, and no red or green lights appeared. The most recent hayride had taken off, and the upstairs level was still roped off. I checked out the chapel, and while there were more of those red ripples, they seemed fainter and less frequent, somehow, and I couldn’t tell where they were really coming from. I passed the couple of drunken wing fans, dutifully flapping my costume wings for them for the 12^th, 13^th, and 14^th times, and remembered Kellan saying that he’d had to go to the bathroom before he got sidetracked.

 

Like most of the rooms in the Manor, the restrooms were pretty outdated and poor quality. For some reason, the ladies’ room had an entrance from the main hall, but the men’s room could only be entered from the outside, near the bonfire (which made it cold). Both of them had spider-webs (the real variety, not the decorative kind) and dust inside, and the men’s room was (of course) dirtier… and that had been during the daytime when I was working. At a party for hundreds of drunken college kids, it was now likely much, much worse.

 

I slipped outside, approached the bathroom and took a deep breath, hoping I’d be able to hold it the entire time I was investigating. Then I shivered… but not from the natural cold. The original foreboding chill that had led me to the wisp and Kellan the first time was back… and it seeped from the restroom, with a green glow appearing under the door.

 

“Of course that’s where this thing’d go,” I groaned, steeling myself and taking another deep breath before I pushed the door open. I stopped in my tracks, as I saw what looked not like a ball of electricity, but a weirdly green “shadow” slipping around on the floor. It looked vaguely human, but there was no one there… or at least no one where the “shadow” lay. It wasn’t really dark, and had the same green glow from earlier, but it seemed somehow thicker and gloomier than before. I watched as it slid into the only locked stall like some sort of snake, and saw a pair of familiar, muscular calves in black skintight fabric. Mentally kicking myself for getting into this situation, I knocked. “Kellan… are you in there? Is everything alright?”

 

An answering groan, deep and rich and definitely his voice, but thick with arousal that I was pretty sure wasn’t in response to me, even if it did turn every single one of my hormones into fireworks, confirmed my guess. The jade glow intensified, and I figured that I’d best find a way to get inside. The old restroom stall door was old-fashioned, not so flimsy as modern ones, and I’d be unlikely to bust the door down, even with a well-placed kick. I began desperately shaking the handle, and mercifully, the old lock was loose enough to pop open.

 

Kellan’s back was to me, so I was treated to a view of his muscular ass in all its glory, round hardened glutes designed for running, lifting, and thrusting. It would’ve been nice to see it A) anywhere except a really disgusting restroom, if he was gay and interested in me, and C) not arching with green energy. The entity that did it to him no longer appeared as a wisp of light, but as that weirdly “glowing shadow”, now more human-looking, which moved from the floor to the wall, where it was emitting the green lightning directly into Kellan’s eyes. Kellan seemed out of it (or into it, rather), but his body was already warping as that weird light flooded through his muscles.  His butt was literally glowing as it flexed and swelled, pushing enticingly towards me. His legs were thickening as muscles appeared to coil into place. His back, now a perfect V, was arched as the eldritch power filled him, his shoulders broader than before and thick with muscle. His arms bulged, powerful biceps and triceps grinding against each other as he flexed in the restroom stall. His neck was thicker as well, stretching to attach to the muscles of his shoulders and back, and his black costume was stretching and riding up on his growing (and glowing) body. I realized with a shock that he was a bit taller than me now. His moans of arousal continued, deep and resonant and obviously stemming from his increasing pleasure. Sparing a moment of regret that I couldn’t see him from the front, and unable to get through to him verbally, I wrapped my arms around his gymnast’s body, and tried pulling him back.

 

Kellan resisted, already much further gone than he had been the last time, his lustful groans replaced by exclamations of disappointment and growls of frustration. The lightning continued to blaze through him (and now me), and this time I felt pain and loss and disorientation before the light changed from poison green to a vivid white brilliance accompanied by the same feeling of accomplishment from the last time. The illumination drove off the weird shadow, forcing it to slink away, and Kellan went slack in my arms. He was now much heavier than earlier, and I had to bend my knees and hold my back against the heavy wood of the stall walls, but in the end, I managed to keep us both from toppling over. When his breathing evened out I took a deep breath, confident that even though Kellan had been changed again, he was safe at the moment. His impressive pecs made his costumed rib cage rise and fall, and the lower part of his shirt raised to reveal several perfectly carved abdominal muscles. Between his chiseled adonis’ belt, a tempting trail of black hair descended from his belly button to his groin, framing a softening uncut dick that had to be at least nine inches hard. I also took in the sight of his substantial balls, and wondered if he’d be able to fit all of his junk back in those tight black pants.

 

After I’d been able to look my fill, his beautiful eyelashes started to flutter. I murmured “Kellan, are you in there?” He groaned and his eyes opened, seeming confused. “Huh? Ange…lo. What’s goin’ on? I was draining the snake when everything went… weird.” He looked down, his eyes widened at the sight of his (mostly soft, but still six inch) shaft. “That’s… not mine,” he stammered, his eyes wide. Hoping to prevent a panic, I interrupted. “Dude, it’s ok, deep breaths. C’mon.” Once he obeyed, I explained what’d happened. “Then you kinda collapsed on me, and you’re a bit heavier than before… think you can stand up? I’m kinda worried about how we’ll explain this pose if someone walks in on us.” He nodded in agreement, still looking confused and unsettled, but with a surprisingly graceful ease, he lifted himself up off of me, using mostly his leg muscles, though his whole body seemed to flex beneath the tight costume, now stretched across a muscular hunk’s frame. I gulped and blushed, and this time he reached out a hand and pulled me up with ease, leaving me facing him. I thought I saw his pale cheeks blush as well, before looking away… and noticing that his cock was hardening again! Forcing my gaze upwards, I managed to say “Thanks… and uh, can you pull your pants up?” This time he definitely blushed and hurried to do that, but his cock was clearly hard and stretching the fabric. “Um… I’ll be outside… call if you see anything weird,” I said, hurriedly, as I duck out of the restroom. Out in the cold November air, I am able to cool down… at least until I hear the sounds of more deliberate moaning and the distinct clapping sound of a guy jerking off, and cursed the old building’s construction yet again. When he finally pushed himself over the brink, it was almost a howl of satisfied lust, and I had to adjust myself and thank heaven I’d opted for heavier black jeans that showed far less than Kellan’s flimsier costume. He eventually came out, wiping his washed hands, and looked at me with an expression like a lost little boy. “Why is this happening to me? What is happening to me? And… why does it feel so good?”

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