Chapter 2

I wake up and for about three seconds, everything is normal. Just a kid on a mattress on a floor in a house that smells like old paint and cardboard. Saturday morning. Sun pushing through the window I forgot to put curtains over.

Then my body checks in.

Every muscle I own is screaming. My shoulders, my back, my legs—all of it feels like I got fed through a washing machine. Yesterday was the most physical labor I’ve done since junior-high gym class, and my body is making sure I know it. I groan and shift on the mattress, and that’s when the other thing makes itself known.

The weight between my legs.

I’m almost too scared to look. I lie there for a full ten seconds, eyes fixed on the hairline crack running across the ceiling, bargaining with the universe. Maybe it went down overnight. Maybe the swelling finally broke. Maybe--

I don’t even need to pull the sheet back. The tent in the fabric is obscene, my morning wood turning my boxer shorts into a circus act. If anything, it feels harder than yesterday. Bigger. Like the venom spent the whole night doubling down instead of fading.

“Great,” I mutter to nobody. “Awesome. Love that for me.”

I sit up slowly, wincing at the soreness in my arms, and swing my legs off the mattress. The floor is cold under my feet. I grab my phone off the outlet by the mattress--7:48 AM--and shuffle toward the door, cracking it open to check the hallway. Empty. The bathroom door across the hall is open, light off. I make my move.

Inside, I close the door and face the toilet. Standard morning routine. Except nothing about this is standard, because my cock is jutting out at a forty-five-degree angle and absolutely refuses to aim downward. I push on it with my hand. It springs back up like a diving board. I try leaning forward over the bowl, practically folding myself in half. The geometry doesn’t work. There is no angle of approach that gets this thing pointed at the toilet bowl without me essentially doing a handstand.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I stare at the mildew-stained shower curtain. Then I just give up, strip off my boxers, step into the tub, and turn the water on. The showerhead sputters twice before committing to a lukewarm stream, and I pee against the tile wall while the water runs over my shoulders. This is my life now. Peeing on walls in the shower like an animal because my dick is the size of a forearm and won’t stand down.

I wash quickly, scrubbing yesterday’s sweat and exhaustion off my skin with a bar of soap I find on the tub ledge. The hot water--well, warm water, the hot water heater in this house is apparently running on fumes--loosens the worst of the soreness in my back. By the time I shut the faucet off, I feel almost human.

Then I reach for the towel rack.

Empty.

I look around the bathroom. Cracked tiles, rust-stained sink, toilet, sad little shower. No towels. No towels anywhere, because my towel is still packed in a box somewhere in my bedroom, and I didn’t think to grab it before I came in here because I’m an idiot who was too busy trying to figure out how to urinate like a civilized person.

“Fuck it.”

I shake off what I can, push my wet hair out of my eyes, and crack the bathroom door open. The hallway is--

Jess is standing right there.

She’s mid-stride, heading toward the bathroom, still in last night’s outfit--the light blue panties and that tiny middle-school t-shirt stretched across her chest, the hem riding up above her belly button. Her hair is a mess, ponytail half-collapsed from sleep.

Her eyes drop immediately.

“Well, good morning to you too,” she says, and the grin that spreads across her face is slow and deliberate and not even a little bit embarrassed.

I’m standing in the bathroom doorway. Naked. Dripping wet. My swollen cock pointing at her like a compass needle finding north.

“Jess--move--”

“I’m just saying good morning, Chris. Relax.”

Heat floods my face. I step forward, one hand instinctively going to cover myself--completely pointless, there’s too much to cover--and try to squeeze past her in the narrow hallway. She doesn’t step aside. She takes half a step toward me, and as I push past her, her body brushes against mine in a way that is absolutely, categorically unnecessary. Her hip drags across my thigh. Her shoulder presses into my chest. The cotton of her shirt is thin enough that I feel the warmth of her skin underneath, and she holds the contact for a beat too long before letting me through.

“Excuse me,” she says, like I’m the one being inconvenient.

I don’t answer. I duck into my room, shut the door, and lean against it, water still dripping down my legs onto the scuffed floor. My heart is hammering. The flirty thing--whatever it is--it’s still there. It didn’t reset overnight. That was not the behavior of a twin sister who gave her brother a handjob yesterday and then woke up mortified about it. That was the behavior of someone who wanted to do it again.

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and breathe.

Okay. Focus. Get dressed.

I find a clean undershirt in one of the half-unpacked boxes against the wall and use it to towel off. It does a terrible job, but it gets me dry enough to pull on clothes--a fresh pair of boxers that I have to stretch and rearrange myself into, jeans that barely button over the bulge, a plain t-shirt. I catch my reflection in the dark window glass. I look like a normal kid. Brown hair sticking up on one side, tired eyes, skinny frame. Normal from the waist up, anyway.

I sit on the edge of the mattress and try to think.

Yesterday I told myself I’d sleep on it. That the answer would come in the morning. Well, it’s morning, and here’s what I’ve got: my dick is still twice its normal size. It’s still rock hard. The effect on women shows zero signs of wearing off. And my brilliant plan of “just don’t think about it” is looking less like a strategy and more like sticking my head in the sand while the tide comes in.

I can’t just hope this works itself out.

The thought lands clean and clear, cutting through the noise. This isn’t going away on its own. The swelling, the erection that won’t quit, whatever chemical thing is happening with my body--this is medical. I got stung by a wasp and my body did something abnormal, and I need a doctor to look at it. Period.

I pull out my phone and open Maps. Clinic near me. There’s one less than two miles away--a walk-in urgent care place on the main road. Close enough to bike to. I zoom in on the route. Straight shot, mostly flat. I can be there in ten minutes.

The alternative is telling Mom. Asking her to drive me. Which means explaining why I need to see a doctor, which means showing her, which means--

No. Absolutely not. I would rather bike ten miles in August heat with this thing straining against my jeans than have that conversation with my mother.

And asking to borrow the car would just raise questions. Where are you going? Why? Can’t it wait? She’d want details. She always wants details, even when she’s trying to sound casual about it.

I grab my sneakers and lace them up, then head downstairs. The living room is a maze of cardboard boxes stacked against every wall, the sagging beige couch barely visible behind them. The kitchen is empty, no Mom. The house is quiet except for the loud hum of the refrigerator and the faint sound of water running upstairs.

I pull out my phone and text Mom: Going for a bike ride, just need some air. Be back soon.

Simple. No details to invite follow-up questions. I find my bike leaning against the inside of the garage where I left it yesterday, wheel it down the cracked driveway, and start pedaling.

The clinic is a squat beige building sandwiched between a dry cleaner and a nail salon. The waiting room smells like hand sanitizer and old magazines. I check in at the front desk, fill out paperwork on a clipboard, and sit down in a plastic chair against the wall. There are maybe six other people here--an old man with a cough, a woman with a toddler on her lap, a guy my age holding an ice pack to his wrist. Nobody looks at me twice.

I pull out my phone and pretend to scroll through it while my leg bounces. This is fine. I’ll tell the doctor about the wasp sting, they’ll give me something for the swelling, and in a few days everything will go back to normal. My dick will return to its regularly scheduled size. The weird effect on women will fade. Jess will go back to being bratty instead of flirty. Everything will just ... reset.

Please.

A high-pitched squeal cuts through the waiting room.

I turn just in time to see Emily launching herself at me. Not walking. Not approaching. Launching--full speed, arms out, closing the distance between us before I can even stand up. She collides with me in the plastic chair, her arms wrapping around my neck, her legs half-straddling my lap, and before I can say a single word her mouth is on mine.

She kisses me full and deep, tongue sliding past my lips like we’ve been doing this for months. She tastes like strawberry lip gloss and toothpaste. Her chest presses flat against mine, the V-neck of her t-shirt doing absolutely nothing to contain the situation, and her fingers thread into the wet hair at the back of my neck. A tiny sound escapes her throat--the same one from yesterday in her kitchen--and for about two seconds my brain just shuts off and I kiss her back.

Then I hear someone clear their throat, and reality crashes in.

I pull back, hands going to Emily’s shoulders, gently creating space between us. Her brown eyes are bright and shining, her cheeks flushed pink, and she’s grinning like I just told her she won the lottery.

“Hi,” she breathes.

“Emily--what--” I glance around the waiting room. The old man is staring. The woman with the toddler is staring. The guy with the ice pack has forgotten about his wrist entirely. “What are you doing here?”

She settles into the chair next to mine, scooting it closer with a scrape of plastic on linoleum, her thigh pressing against my leg. “Mom brought me for a checkup. And...”, she leans closer, her voice dropping, “to put me on birth control.” She says with a wink.

“Hi, Chris.”

The voice comes from behind me--low, smooth, honey-warm--and every hair on the back of my neck stands up. I turn in my chair. Lisa is standing three feet away. Sundress, plunging neckline, same enormous proportions packed onto that barely-five-foot frame. Her dark eyes are locked on me with the exact same expression from yesterday. Not glazed exactly--more like focused. Laser-focused. Like I’m the only thing in the room worth looking at.

“Lisa. Hey. Hi.” I am supremely articulate.

She takes the chair on my other side, crossing her legs at the ankle, her knee bumping mine. The vanilla scent I remember from her kitchen drifts over, mixing with the clinical smell of the waiting room. “Small world,” she says, and her lips curve into a smile that is the opposite of innocent.

Emily leans into my arm, her chest pressing warm against my bicep. “We were just talking about you this morning,” she says.

“All good things,” Lisa adds. Her eyes travel slowly down my body and then back up. She doesn’t even pretend to be subtle about it.

I shift in my chair. The two of them bracket me like bookends, and I’m intensely aware of every point of contact--Emily’s thigh against mine, Lisa’s knee, the way Emily’s fingers have found the crook of my elbow and are tracing small circles on my skin.

“So,” I say, trying to steer my brain toward something resembling normal conversation. I look at Lisa. “Are you--is there a, um--” I lower my voice. “Is there a Mr...?”

“Oh, you mean am I married?” Lisa says it like it’s the most amusing question she’s heard all week. She lifts her left hand, and there it is--a simple gold band on her ring finger. “Yes. Technically.”

My stomach tightens. “Technically.”

She waves the hand dismissively, the ring catching the fluorescent light. “He travels. A lot. He’s gone more than he’s home.” She tilts her head, dark hair falling across one shoulder, and her voice drops to that honeyed register that makes my chest do something uncomfortable. “What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” She punctuates this with a wink. A wink. Like we’re sharing a fun secret and not discussing adultery in a walk-in clinic.

Emily giggles and squeezes my arm.

I do not find that answer very reassuring.

In fact, I find it the exact opposite of reassuring. It confirms something I’ve been trying not to think about since yesterday--that whatever this effect is, whatever the venom is doing to the people around me, it doesn’t just make them attracted. It makes them not care. About consequences, about commitments, about anything except getting closer to me. Lisa has a husband. She has a ring on her finger. And she’s sitting here in a public waiting room pressing her knee into mine and telling me it doesn’t matter with the same casual tone she’d use to discuss the weather.

And Emily--fifteen years old, here to get put on birth control the morning after a stranger kissed her and her mother simultaneously in their kitchen--is beaming at me like this is the beginning of a love story.

This isn’t going away. None of it is going away.

I need to see that doctor.

A door beside the front desk swings open and a woman in scrubs glances down at her clipboard. “Christopher Swanson?”

I’ve never been so relieved to hear my own name.

“That’s me.” I stand fast enough that Emily’s fingers slip off my arm. Lisa’s knee loses contact with my leg, and the cool absence of her warmth is its own kind of freedom.

“Good luck,” Emily chirps, bright as a sunrise, like I’m heading into a spelling bee and not a medical examination for my freakishly swollen dick.

Lisa’s eyes track me all the way across the waiting room. I can feel them on my back like sunlight through a magnifying glass. I don’t look back.

The nurse leads me down a short hallway with fluorescent lights buzzing overhead and that antiseptic smell that makes everything feel both safer and worse. She points me into an exam room, small, cold, the usual setup. Paper-covered table, a rolling stool, a blood pressure cuff on the wall, a jar of cotton balls on the counter. Normal. Aggressively, beautifully normal.

“Dr. Talwar will be with you shortly,” the nurse says, and closes the door behind her.

I sit on the edge of the exam table. The paper crinkles under me. My jeans are digging into my waist and the persistent pressure against my zipper is a constant, low-grade reminder of why I’m here. I press my palms flat against my thighs and try to breathe.