Apparently, part of what had taken so long earlier, when Max was in the store was that he’d pulled far more clothes from the racks than Matt could have ever hoped to have worn in one outfit. Instead, Max started holding up various looks, generally throwing them away after a few moments, unsatisfied with what possibilities they might hold. This gave Matt a moment or two to recover from the pain of his tattooing, and let him take a look at his now older physique. He wasn’t sure whether it was the dye or the tattoos, but his skin felt strange underneath his hands, rough and leathery and even a bit wrinkled. He did his best to try and calm down, but he could already feel panic rising. He’d felt like this before, he’d felt like this after he’d gotten transformed in the common room by Tom and company, and he bolted for the door, but Max grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back.
“Not so fast–we aren’t done here.”
“Please, please I don’t want to change anymore than this, I don’t want to be that much different.”
“You aren’t going to be different, you’re going to be better. Besides, don’t forget, you’re the one who asked for this. This is what you siad you wanted, so you’re gonna sleep in the bed you made whether or not I have to tie you down into it. And if you keep struggling, I might make a mistake…accidentally of course, and pick the wrong product…and then who knows what you might end up as?”
The threat was enough to heel Matt, and he settled down a bit, watching the clothes flash in the mirror next to him. A leather cop uniform was discarded, followed by some military gear which Max held up for a moment or two, apparently mulling it over, but that was cast aside too. “I like the military look, but hmm…it just doesn’t seem…ah, I know…” Max said, and dug around in the pile of clothes, “but before that, we’d have to…hmmm, yeah I think this just might work.”
“Alright, first things first, all knights need a codpiece–for protection of course,” Max said, “Here, put this on first.”
Max handed him a pile of chain, and at first he had no idea what to do with it, but as he turned it over in his older ahnds, the pattern fell out, and he saw that it was a jockstrap made of metal. The pouch was tightly woven chainmail, and the straps were chain link, and the entire thing was surprisingly heavy, and he wasn’t entirely sure how it was going to stay up if he pulled it on, but it was…kind of sexy, and at this point, he was stuck, so he might as well just go along with it. He pulled it on, and realized a second problem–there was no elastic in the chain, making the problem of it staying in place even more complicated. However, as soon as he pulled it up into place and had held it up for a few seconds, the solution revealed itself, as his ass filled out with muscle, pulling the chain tight, his waits growing to match to chain waist perfectly, and his cock and balls swelling to fill out the pouch. The chain was slightly permeable, allowing glimpses of his flesh, and he let go, the jock held in place…a little too well. He tried to take it off next, but realized that he had grown to fit it a little too perfectly. He couldn’t slide the waist down past his muscular ass. “How am I…Does this thing come off?”
“Now, what knight would be caught without their armor on?”
“I’m not kidding–how in the hell am I supposed to fuck with this thing on?” Matt said, trying to pull the pouch to the side and let his cock out, but again, it was held too well in place for his cock to slip out, “This isn’t funny–I’m not interested in a fucking chastity belt.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that–the jock is just there to make sure you keep you honest and true to that cub of yours–we can’t have you fucking around on him, can we?”
“What, I can’t even jack off?”
“Nope,” Max said, grinning, “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it–and trust me–it does keep that junk of yours nice and safe. Now, these next–from our ‘Battleworn’ collection. I really want some camo on a grizzled warrior like yourself, but most everything I had was too clean and pristine. However, I bet these will be perfect.”
He handed Matt a pair of camo pants, socks and boots. Looking at the pants, Matt saw that they were heavily worn, with quite a few stains which he hoped were just mud, but which could very well have been something bloody, with the knees and crotch ripped open in quite a few places. They looked like they’d been in some rugged man’s wardrobe for most of his life–a treasured outfit worn as a badge of pride. The boots were similar, functional, but well worn, but Matt was still terrified to proceed. “If…If I put these on, am I going to forget who I am?”
“You’ll remember who you really are.”
“No, that’s not what I mean–and you know that. Will I still remember? Like I can now?”
Max shrugged, “Honestly? I don’t know. I don’t know what makes one of you remember and the next one forget. But I’d say the same rule applies–do you want to remember?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“”Then chances are you will. Now quit stalling and put those pants on–I don’t have all day.”
Matt pulled on the pants–and found them quite comfortable. In fact, they felt so comfortable Matt was suddenly convinced he must have worn them before, but where? He was still trying to remember as he pulled on some ragged wool socks and the combat boots before standing up and looking at himself in the mirror–and then he remembered–how could he have forgotten? He’d bought these pants ages ago from the army supply store, when he was just a young muscle cub. Hell, the first night he’d worn them he’d gotten into the barroom brawl which gave him the first scar across his face.
As soon as the memory crossed his mind, Matt watched the reflection in the mirror shimmer across his face, and an ugly, but well faded scar materialized, stretching from the base of his ear across his cheek, from where that biker had slashed him with a broken whisky bottle. Still, the fucker had had it coming to him, when Matt broke the pool cue over his head, trying to force that sexy barcub to come home with him on his cycle when it was pretty clear the cub had no interest in him at all. His chivalry had far too often been his undoing. Still, as the cub had cleaned the wound back in the stockroom, and then ridden Matt’s cock, it had all turned out for the best, right? Besides, he’d won plenty of other fights without getting wounded, he thought with a chuckle, his knuckles gathering all the small knicks and swells of a man accustomed to fighting with his bare hands, but he hadn’t gotten away scot free every time. Scars appeared all over him then, each one with a story–an entire military history of his life, catalogued across his body in wounds, not all of them victories, but all of them fought righteously.
Matt looked at his image, and what had once been alien to him seemed amazingly familiar, the hollowed, slightly sunken eyes, one of them slightly lazy after it didn’t quite recover from a rock flung into it, the hard lips pulled tight, the cheeks thick with white stubble. Why shouldn’t it be familiar to him? What was strange about that? He could feel something slipping away then, something he could sense that he needed to hold onto desperately, and he dug around his new history, looking for anything that didn’t belong. A young man named Matt, sequestered in a dorm room, terrified for his life. A day laborer trapped in an abusive relationship. These people, they couldn’t be him, could they? But there was Terry–he knew Terry. Terry was his cub…could he? Like a separate line unraveling behind him, he saw this other, second history, but the first, his life of battles, that couldn’t just be a lie, could it? He had all the wounds to prove it had happened, and yet he couldn’t deny the second either.
As he struggled with his mind, Max helped him into a chainmail vest, and as soon as the metal slid onto his shoulders, Matt saw his physique in the mirror begin to bulge, his muscles filling out and building on top of themselves over and over again like scar tissue, looking crude and uneven, their function being two–the first to provide him with raw power in a fight, and the second being pure intimidation. And sure enough, if Matt had seen someone like him walking in his direction looking angry, he would have turned around and walked in the other direction, well, he would have if he hadn’t always looked like this, but then again, he hadn’t always…right? His head hurt–it was so hard keeping track of everything that was changing around and within him. Terry–he had to hold onto Terry. That was why he was doing all of this, that was what he had to focus on. He had to protect him–he had to be his daddy–nothing else mattered–not really.
And that was the core of him, that underneath all of this rough skin, the hard muscle, the armor the battle, that at the very center of him pulsed this heart, and in the middle of that was love, justice and care and all towards Terry. He realized he didn’t need this chainmail jock to keep him devoted–he already was devoted, even more than he had been, and the thought of Terry lying alone in their room, injured and alone, it was breaking him apart. He needed to be there, nursing him back to health, making sure he stayed safe. “Look,” Matt said, his voice gruff and curt, “I have to fuckin’ go man, I have a cub back on campus, and he’s hurt, ‘n I gotta make sure he’s alright.”
“Now hold on daddy, we aren’t quite finished here. See, I’m really liking this metal motif of yours. Besides, you need a smoke before you go, to purge the rest of the asscub from your system, and I have just the smoke for you, while I go get a few more things,” Max said. He handed Matt a short, thick cigar, already cut, and lit it for Matt before he left. The smoke was very harsh, and Matt actually coughed on the first draw, feeling his nerves suddenly light up like he’d been given a shot of adrenaline. He felt so alive all of the sudden, and aware of everything around him. This hyperfocus slowly condensed within him into a small, tight ball of righteous anger, and his lip curled up around the cigar in a slight sneer. Yeah, so what if he had a bit of a mean streak? It was natural for someone who’d been in as many fights as he had to be a bit rough with people. It was part of why he’d become a bouncer–so he had an excuse to get into a big man’s face and fuck them up if he needed to. Sure, he might have goaded a few guys into a fight over the years, but he’d never lost a fight he’d picked. He was itching for one now, he wanted to feel his fist crush into some poor sucker’s face–he’d been out of the fight for too long if he couldn’t remember the last time he’d stood over some bitch’s bruised and crumpled body. That was why he needed the jock, he realized, so he could resist that urge to fuck the loser, because he’d made a promise to Terry, to be his, but god, sometimes he just wanted to feel a bloody mouth around his fat tool again. Maybe he’d feel that one more time before he died, god he loved that.
Max came back in, carrying a tray laden with a collection of metal rings and studs. He started with Matt’s face, giving him small gauges in his ears, a bar in one of his eyebrows and a thick horseshoe through his septum, and then worked his way down, putting two rings in his thick nipples, and then found himself up against the jock. “Do me a favor,” Max said, “think about your cub for me, think about how much you want to fuck him.”
“”Ha, that’s a easy one,” Matt said, “Terry’s got such a fine fuckin’ ass, I could just plow that thing all day long, I tell ya what, fuck–gettin’ me horny just thinkin’ ‘bout it…” he said, and felt his cock start to swell against the chainmail pouch of the jock, the metal links pulling apart and stretching as his cock hardened, until it actually popped out between the links, the thick meat rigid and leaking a little precum, and with one smooth motion, Max slid a massive PA though the head of his cock, before it slipped back into the pouch. “Alright man, we finished here yet?”
“Almost,” Max said, “Just one last thing. Do you still remember? Do you still know who you were?”
Matt was a bit taken aback by the question. He’d been hoping he could just pretend it wasn’t real, but if this guy was actually asking about it…then how could it not be real? “Yeah…it’s…it’s kind of fuzzy, but I remember most of it.”
“Good, because I’m going to have to hold onto that for a while,” Max said, and held up a small, clear crystal which emitted a stream of light and burrowed its way into Matt’s head, and a moment later, it was gone, but so were Matt’s pasts–both of them. Well, not all of it, he still knew he had a cub named Terry, and he had a job as a bouncer, but everything behind that, the entire context and history of his life had just vanished into this air, and saw a twinkle of light in the crystal Max held aloft..
“What…what did you just do to me?” Matt said, “I’ll fucking kill you asshole, I’ll fucking–” he said, and made to swing at the fat biker…but for some reason he couldn’t. That smell, the smell was back, that alpha smell, and Matt could feel it bending even his iron will around, keeping him locked in place.
“Alright, here’s the deal,” Max said, palming the crystal, “I need a favor. You see, I need to find someone, but the problem is, I can’t actually leave this store…for some peculiar reasons, so I need someone to find him for me. Professor Erikson–do you know him?”
Matt recognized the name as one of the professors on campus, and he knew it should have meant more to him, but there was this hole, a giant hole in his memory, and it was there in that crystal. He was in that crystal, and he needed that, he needed it back. “The name…the name sounds familiar, but I don’t know where he is…”
“Well no one does–that’s why I want you to find him. You find him, and bring him back here in one piece, and you can have your memories back. I’ll even throw in some bonus information, I’ll let you in on why Tristan is doing all of this, and how you might be able to stop him–how does that sound?”
“Tristan? I don’t…you…you took that too, why is that name familiar? What is going on?”
Max laughed and then said, “I guess you’ll have to find Erikson if you want to know. However, don’t you have a cub to worry about? It would sure be a shame if something happened to him in his weakened condition, unless you really care to pick a fight with an alpha. Trust me, I can have that jock releasing that cock of yours to my touch in a matter of minutes–you really want to be my thrall, tough guy?”
Matt was a fighter, but he also knew better than to pick ones he knew he would lose, but he’d get this fucker back, he knew that much. “Fine, but don’t think for a goddamn second this is at all over.”
“I wouldn’t dare. Now get going daddy–you have a cub to tend to, and a man to find for me.”
Matt scowled, and then pushed his way past Max and tromped out onto the mall, just daring any man he passed by to give him a wrong look. He was aching for a fight now, after that little bit of humiliation. He pulled out another cigar and lit up, the nicotine rush calming his wrath a bit and letting him get out without incident, and he walked back to campus and his room with Terry. Terry would make him feel better, and then he’d work on finding this stupid professor so he could get his goddamn memories back from that fuck at Bear Boutique, however, when he got to the dorm, and down into the basement, he saw that something was definitely wrong. The door to his room was open, and two campus security guards were standing outside the door. Like all the other guards, they were nearly identical in physique, with identical high ‘n tight haircuts, mustaches and the same muscle hugging leather uniforms. “What’s going on here?” Matt asked as he came close, “Where’s Terry?”
The two men turned towards him, “Sir, is your name Matt?”
“What if it is?”
“Sir, a warrant has been issued for your detainment. Come with us peacefully, or we’re going to have to use force.”
“Ha, you and what army?” Matt asked.
The two officers pulled their batons, but Matt was quicker, slamming one’s head into the wall, knocking him out with a single blow, grabbing his baton as he fell and slamming it into the other’s kneecap so hard that he heard the snap of bone, the guard screaming as he crumpled to the ground.
“Shut the fuck up,” Matt screamed in his face, silencing him, and then he dragged both of the officers into his room and shut the door, throwing the conscious one up onto the bed and hauling down his pants. “Now, I can’t fuck ya, but trust me, if I could, I would. So this baton is gonna have to be my dick for the moment. Now, your gonna tell me where my Terry is, or this thing is going so far up your ass it ain’t gonna see the light of day for a year,” Matt said, slamming the first few inches of the baton up the man’s hole for emphasis, “Now start talking, and this fuck won’t get too rough.”
In between begging for mercy and cries of pain, Matt was able to work out the details of what had happened. Someone had put in a tip that Terry was a member of the resistance, and they’d issued a warrant for Matt as well, given their romantic connection. Matt didn’t know anything about this so called resistance–or at least he didn’t anymore. He left both of the security guards tied up there when he was through with them, his cock achingly hard against the chainmail which refused to budge and open for his lust at the moment, and that just made him long for Terry more. Those fuckers at security had made a big mistake, Matt thought as he crossed campus. No one takes his cub and lives to tell anything but tales of horror about Matt’s vengeance.
Bracken's Corner 