I sat the barbell back on the rack, enjoying the familiar ache in my muscles that came with a good workout. The pain of muscle tearing, knowing they’d rebuild better, stronger, thicker. A good pain, I’d always thought. The pain of improvement.
I came here often, at least 4 or 5 times a week, a gym rat through and through. I was more than familiar with the rigors of bodybuilding. Packing on pounds of muscle, downing protein shakes and working it off on the barbells and treadmills. I came out each day sore and tired and far smaller than what I’d envisioned myself from the level of work I put in.
But today was different, somehow. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. It was as if I suddenly felt… right, in a way I never knew I was missing till now.
I wasn’t that much bigger than I had been. A few more pounds of muscle, able to bench another ten pounds from last week without too much trouble or risk. My biceps were maybe a little bit more firm. Nothing anyone who saw me regularly could tell.
But whatever it was, it made a world of difference to my psyche. I KNEW it deep down somehow that things were somehow better. It brought me a sense of peace, of safety that I couldn’t recall ever feeling. I had been scared all my life of never getting the body I really wanted.
Fear was nothing new for me. I hadn’t had the best childhood. I suppose no one had, let’s be honest. Everyone had their own shit to deal with, their own demons. Mine involved scurrying up into the attic every time my dad got the idea to come home from work and drink, or whenever mom cracked open that third bottle of wine.
The attic was my safe space. They never seemed to look for me up there, and I could wait till they were passed out before coming down again. It was funny. I always had this childhood fear that they would find me, catch me, beat me, or worse, eat me! Crazy, I know. Like I said, not the best childhood. But hey, it was mine.
School life was no better. My small stature and the stench of poverty made me a bullseye for bullies. The worst was David Blackwood, a spoiled rich kid whose family owned several businesses in town. He made it his life’s mission to make mine miserable. He always got away with it, too, no matter how often he stole my lunch money or gave me the odd black eye or bruised arm. Fucking rich privilege.
I was told everything from ‘just ignore him,’ to ‘fight back,’ to ‘try and play nice!’ Nothing worked of course. I lived every day in constant fear. Most lunch hours I found a tree and climbed it, hoping to get there before he found me. It felt safe up there like no one could get me. It was the only place that granted me refuge.
I guess my pathetic childhood carried over into my adult life. I know, it’s a cliche. I had tried as hard as I could to escape it and better myself after getting out from under my parent’s thumb. The end result was a low-end computer programming job with shit hours and shittier pay than what I was worth.
I couldn’t even escape David; he had a job at one of his dad’s companies near my own company’s office. I’d often see him walking by on my way to work. He always reeked of booze or pot, obviously not held to the same rigorous standards of employment as the rest of us. I worked a desk job, barely able to afford rent, with no sick days or vacation days to speak of. I’d be fired on the spot if I pulled even one day of the shit he did. David inherited a senior position at his father’s company just via birth.
He rarely spoke to me directly. But every time he saw me, he flashed me that knowing smile, the one that spoke volumes. ‘I’m better than you. Superior. An apex human. You’re worthless.’ I held my tongue and never acknowledged him.
All my life I’d wished to be bigger, stronger, the one being feared instead of constantly being afraid. Maybe that’s why I hit the gym so hard in my university days. Always reaching for that extra inch, that every pound. Never feeling fulfilled, as though I was chasing something impossible. I guess everyone felt that way. It was common in bodybuilding to plateau after a while. Every human body had natural, genetically determined limits, no matter how hard they worked at it.
There was always something in the back of my mind, telling me I would get to the ideal weight. Those thoughts were constantly spurring me on, giving me the energy to lift that barbell over my head once more or run a few extra laps on the treadmill. And fuck if this wasn’t the exact feeling I never even knew I was missing. It was like I had my own untapped genetic potential, and I had finally unlocked it. I had indeed reached my ideal goal!
I’d never felt this relaxed or this powerful before. I was always rushing from work to the gym to errands. I felt like I never had any time, with that sense of unnecessary urgency hanging over me like a cloud. Fucking shrinks diagnosed me with severe anxiety and kept pumping me full of meds. Nothing worked. The way I felt now, I wouldn’t need any of that shit again. I felt like a million bucks, as the saying went. I could take on the world like this!
I took my time that day, drinking in the sights of the city from the perspective of a winner. The world seemed so much smaller now with my new-found confidence.
As I walked home, a particular scent wafted into my nostrils, and I stopped, almost tasting the air as the savory aroma bore into my brain. I moved slowly in its direction, confident in my stride as I spotted the butcher’s shop across the street. That was my target.
I raced towards it, barely conscious of the street light or the honking cars as I made my way closer to my goal. I hadn’t realized it before, but I was hungry! It was more than even the gnawing hunger I felt from a hard workout. This was the nearly ravenous hunger of a starved man. I needed to eat, and something over that way smelled fucking delicious.
It was there, in the window, the object of my desires. A huge chunk of roasted flesh, beef most likely, roasted and seared to perfection. I felt my mouth salivating from the sight and scent. I liked meat, sure, but always smaller things, like chicken nuggets or fish fillets. Nothing too substantial. I never had much of an appetite, likely from those times when I hadn’t been fed as a child. But seeing and scenting the succulent flesh, I couldn’t imagine anything more tantalizing. I envisioned the savory morsel in my mouth, swallowing it, feeling it slide down my gullet as I ate my fill.
I must have worn the look of a crazed man when I approached the man behind the counter. He looked at me in puzzlement, the expression on his face as though he was staring at a man deranged. Had I not been so ravenous, I might have agreed. In my haze of hunger, I demanded to know how much for the hunk of meat. He began listing off prices per pound, a nervous look in his eyes. It was a look I knew well, one of a prey animal in the presence of a predator.
“Nooo…” I growled, annoyed at his aggravating stare. “The whole thing.”
He just punched up a number on his register, the fear in his movements indicative that he just wanted me to be gone. It had too many zeros for what my bank account was used to, but I didn’t care. It was all I could do to wait till he wrapped the whole thing and handed it to me, barely able to lift it off the counter as he passed it to me.
I saw my reflection in the glass of the shop window as I turned to leave. If I hadn’t been so damn hungry, I might have been concerned by how my yellowed eyes seemed plagued with jaundice. Worse was the pupils were slit, like a cat in sunlight. But I didn’t give a fuck right now. I lifted my prize, lighter for me than it had been for the shopkeeper, and hurried home to my dingy one-bedroom apartment.
I slammed the whole thing down on my counter, unwrapping it quickly. Savoring the wafting scent of the delectable flesh, I pondered how to prepare it. I knew I should grab a knife, some sort of utensils, but I just kept staring, the savory scent wafting into my enlarged nostrils. I couldn’t think straight. I just needed to eat…
Before I realized it, I had the end of the slab in my mouth, my jaw seemingly expanding to fit over it as I struggled to shove the whole damn thing in at once. I felt my jaw unlatching as my teeth seemed to sharpen to draw the meat into my salivating maw. The sensations gave me no pain, even as my jaw extended impossibly wide. I could see the widening edges in my periphery as I pushed the meat further down my throat.
As I tightly grasped the chunk of flesh, I could feel my nails extend and thicken. The sensation of piercing the flesh gave me the satisfaction that NO ONE would take it from me. They held my meal steady as my sharper teeth broke into the savory meat. My flicking tongue ran over the succulent flesh as I worked to swallow it whole.
As I continued trying to fit the whole thing into my mouth, I felt the muscles in my shoulder and upper arms tense from a sudden strain. They stiffened as their bulging mass forced my shirt to stretch tightly over them. I was too engrossed in my meal to care, however.
A few sharp tears entered my ears as my taut shirt gave way to the powerful dry skin underneath. I would have smiled if my mouth wasn’t full of my succulent catch. The power in my body was suddenly immense. I had really done it! I had the muscle mass of my dreams and the perfect food reward to satisfy my hunger.
I felt a tight pulling at my backside, something thickening and wriggling like a snake in my pants. Yet, engrossed in my meal as I was, I did not question its presence. A slight irritation played over my mind as the thing started to struggle against my clothing, desperate for freedom. Its needs were a distant second to the needs in my empty belly.
I continued shoving inch after inch of that hunk of flesh into my muzzle, my neck expanding to take the meat down into my gullet. There was a strange taste in my mouth, contrasting the sweet meat with something sour. I realized I was salivating over the tender flesh, and the taste of my spit was making it bitter. After a few moments, the taste became bearable, the delectable meat taking precedence in my senses once again.
Even with my mouth full of meat, I was still able to spare some awareness of how much larger I had become from my diligent workouts. I was so strong, so powerful, my rigid muscles making micro tears in the stitching of my shirt. Their seams were withering away under the force of my powerful flesh. I was going to need an entirely new wardrobe for my new physique!
The notion of my masculine might made me as satisfied as the fullness of my gut. I let out a hearty belch as the last of the meat hunk slid down my needy maw. My belly became massively distended to fit that much food at once. To my delight, the skin rippled easily. Not even a semblance of pain radiated from my stomach. The thick bulge above my ass wagged in excitement as I ate my fill.
I came down from my food-induced ecstasy, barely aware that my hands were covered in grease from the cooked flesh. It was immensely gratifying. Though, in retrospect, I pondered how the taste might have been had the meat been a little less cooked. Still, it was satisfying enough, and I felt a sudden sense of fatigue wash over me.
I crawled to my couch, scarcely aware of the aches and pains as my muscle mass decreased. I missed the sensations of my shrinking skull and receding bulge as I drifted off into blissful slumber.
I awoke sometime later with intense stiffness over my skin. It was as if it had been stretched too tight over the muscle underneath. Still, I felt immensely satisfied, patting my distended stomach. I got up slowly, muscles stiff and sore from how I’d been laying. I figured a hot shower might help and walked into my bathroom.
The fog clouding my mind seemed to lift a little, and the bizarre sensations I’d felt from feeding began seeping back into my mind. I checked myself in the mirror, looking for the changes that I scarcely recalled. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing. My mouth seemed normal-sized. My fingernails looked normal, if not a little more pointed than before. And nothing was sticking out above my ass.
My clothes were another story, however. All the micro rips I’d felt and had heard during my feast were present. I felt back along my ass, detecting a massive hole where I’d felt the thing burst out. These revelations didn’t disturb me, however. It was only natural that silly human clothes couldn’t hold back my beauty.
There was something off about my skin that did alarm me. It looked foggy, translucent, the likely explanation for the stiffness that had been plaguing me. I stepped into the shower, trying to lather myself up when I realized the soap was catching on the tough skin of my back and chest. I scrubbed as hard as I could, an audible tear echoing in my ears as the skin ripped as easily as I’d felt my clothes tear earlier.
I tugged at the useless, dead skin, wanting so badly to tear it away and expose the new flesh underneath. It took some effort, but as I pulled, large chunks came away across my chest and back, falling to the bathtub floor with a satisfying plop. It felt right to slough off all the old flesh to allow fresh, new, shiny skin to show forth. It felt like a sign of my vitality, my health.
I stepped out of the shower and spent many long minutes admiring my form. There was no rush to do anything else. I was full, I was fit, and I was home. Nothing could hurt me here. Nothing would dare to. If I was threatened, I could tear into it as easily as I did the hunk of meat.
The feeling of superiority did not abate in those next few days. In fact, it was only amplified by how beautiful my skin was, accented by rippling muscle underneath. I walked to work every morning, a confidence in my strut that did not go unnoticed by my coworkers or my fellow gym members. I didn’t care, however. The thoughts and opinions of lesser specimens were beneath me.
The next day I ran into David again, as I often did on my walk to work. He didn’t notice me, at first, not with how ripped I was, how brilliantly my skin shone. I couldn’t blame him. The confident swagger in my step that hadn’t been there the last time he’d seen me. He was about as bright as a burned-out light bulb, and it showed in the vacant expression on his face as I regarded him with a rather predatory grin.
“Hey! What the fuck are you looking at, you faggot! The fuck’s your problem?” he yelled, clearly displeased with the way I was staring.
I couldn’t blame him. Anyone would be unnerved by the predatory gaze I was giving him. It was only natural. He was weak compared to me. I had the power now, and he needed to know it.
He didn’t seem to take the hint. David stepped up to me, trying to intimidate me with his height, expensive clothes, and smug superiority. He was taller than me, to be sure, but that was his only real advantage. I could smell his stench in my nose, and despite the grossness of aftershave and cologne, he still made my mouth water. It had been several days since that last meal, after all.
David had made his final mistake. He went to shove me, not realizing how sturdy my new body was. With a fluid motion, I reached down to bite the hand on my shoulder, my teeth expending just enough to pierce his flesh. My strike was sufficient to draw blood as he screamed in pain from my sudden action.
“The fuck is wrong with you!? Get out of here, asshole, before I call the cops!” he yelled as he ran away, cradling the small wound on his hand.
His threats were meaningless. The bites on his hand wouldn’t look human enough to trace it back to me. Maybe a DNA test might trace things back to me, but that was unlikely. My cells were different from anything in any database. Perhaps different than any human being on the planet.
I’d done a little research after that day. It was the sour taste, in tandem with the rough skin and sharp claws that had spurred my interest. The puzzle pieces started falling into place when I’d discovered it. A species whose young hid from their parents and larger peers for fear of being eaten. One that grows into adulthood practices once it reaches the ideal weight. One whose mouth is filled with potent poison, quickly infecting any wound inflicted on potential prey. A komodo dragon.
I smiled, watching him limp away. I had his scent in my nostrils now. I knew he wouldn’t get far. I continued to smile, secure in the knowledge that no matter where he went, I could follow. Each day, each hour, he would slowly get weaker, the potent cocktail of venom my mouth now possessed making him sicker and sicker. Until he could no longer escape. Until his weakened form would become my next meal.