Chapter 2

Here's where things start to get really interesting.

That baseball bat to the back of my head probably should have killed me, but, for whatever reason, I wasn't dead and I was actually starting to come around. I heard hushed but angry voices. I was disoriented enough to not be able to understand what they were saying at first, but things were clearing up quickly. I was having trouble getting all my parts moving as they should and I could tell there was a lot of blood on me, so I figured they had kept kicking me once I was down. What a surprise.

Now I could make out that the argument was between Betty Gorman and the guys they had with them. Ralph Gorman, I realized, was standing right in front of me. As Betty and the thugs (which I still think would make a great name for a band) were arguing, I risked opening my eyes to figure out where the hell I was. I was in the back corner of the alley and was looking right up Ralph's shorts. I think, considering all the shit I've had to deal with in life, I could have been spared that.

Betty was becoming more vehement and thugs stopped caring. She was saying something about making them do what they were paid for, but the thugs were more interested in getting themselves patched up. Apparently, I did more damage than I thought. That gave me a nice, warm feeling deep in my gut, which turned to ice when the guys started to cave.

They would 'rape the bitch' but be quick about it.

If I had been able, I would have stood up and tried to kill them all, and I did try. To stand up that is. But my body was not cooperating; only one arm would move the way I wanted it to. I think everything else was broken.

So I did the next best thing.

I dragged myself a little closer to Ralph, grabbed his leg, and, before he could do anything, ripped at his Achilles Tendon with my teeth and then sank my teeth as deep into his calf as I could. He screamed and screamed. It was very satisfying at a philosophical level, more so when I puked into the wound in response to the taste of his blood in my mouth. It remained satisfying and caused the desired commotion even as they tried to drag me off of him. It was all going well enough until Betty kicked me in the temple, throwing my head back from Ralph's leg. I smiled up at her and spat my chunk of Ralph's leg at her.

I was thinking that might have been a mistake as she pulled out a very large gun and shot me. Twice. As you might have imagined, things went dark for me again.

When I woke up this time I was alone but I could hear sirens approaching. With greater presence of mind than could be expected, I grabbed Ralph's calf, which had been left behind, and dragged myself out of the ally into the road. I saw one of Megan's neighbors run out of her door towards me before I passed out again.

I think I was in the middle of surgery when I woke up. But Megan was at my side, in a surgical mask, so I wasn't worried. Then I could feel the forceps working in my gut and I realized she was trying to get one of the bullets out. I figured there had to be a better way to wake up and proceeded to pass out again.

I was feeling very sluggish mentally when I woke up next. Megan was still right at my side, though I think we were in a normal hospital room. The first thing I noticed was that I could read her emotions almost like I could feel my own. Her love for me was a palpable force. So was her fear for me.

"It was the Gormans," I croaked out. As she threw herself on me, hugging me to her, I noticed the cop and who I assumed was a detective that Megan had been talking to. I directed the rest of my statement to them as I stroked Megan's long, dark hair. "It was the Gormans. Paid some guys to rape... kill Megan... make it look like a break in, nothing more. Found them before they found her... hurt most of them... was Ralph's calf I had... Betty shot me... the Gormans." My words had dwindled to a whisper and I could feel my strength fading fast.

I would have laughed if I could as the detective scrambled to jot down what I said. I thought it was odd that I should feel awed at such a time, but then I realized that the awe was coming from the two men. I was freaked out by that but I had something more important to do and was pressed for time to do it in.

I gathered Megan in my arms and whispered in her ear, "I love you." Guess what I did next. Yep, you got it: I passed the hell out.

I know you're getting tired of it, but trust me that I wasn't all that thrilled with the situation either. However, I still hold that it's better than the alternative. So I woke up, again, and slowly opened my eyes.

I was in a different room, but still in a hospital. A very nice hospital if one were to judge by all the digital equipment surrounding me. I didn't even know what half the machines were supposed to monitor. None of that was really important to me because, right at that moment, my eyes came across Megan's sleeping form.

She looked so tired. Her face, normally very pale, now seemed sickly and drawn, bespeaking a pain the likes of which I had hoped she never had to know. I had felt that kind of pain the first time I had failed to protect one of my kids. I had let the clinic send me to the hospital after I got all that head trauma when I was nine. I got back to the house a week later, and one of my kids, a little six year-old boy named Ryan, just wasn't there. I couldn't find him. I looked but I couldn't find any sign that he had ever been in the house and no one would answer any of my questions about him. And so another week passed. If I hadn't mentioned Ryan's name in front of Jake, one of my serial tormentors, I never would have known what happened to my boy.

As I said Ryan's name, I got this horrible sense of satisfaction, and I locked my eyes on Jake, who was sitting on the other side of the room. I slowly stood up and stalked over to the sixteen year old, and if you don't think an almost ten year-old can stalk, I'll just say you never saw me. By the time I was standing in front of Jake, he was twisting in his seat, wishing he was somewhere else. He was alone this time, and he knew I never lost one-on-one. His smirk was long gone.

"What do you know about Ryan, Jake?" I asked it softly, not really interested in his answer. What I was watching for was his physical reaction, some hint to his emotion.

"I don't know—" was all he got out before I felt the wave of lust and satisfaction. I put my foot in the middle of his face and sent him flying, flipping over the back of his chair. I think I was growling, but I'm not sure. I was just focused on making Jake hurt and, in part, punish myself for letting it happen.

You see, Jake was the one who hit me in the head with the shovel a little more than two weeks before. I should have figured that he had a purpose behind his calculated attack, but it never occurred to me that he had any other goal than to cause me harm. And what made it worse for me was that the Gormans had covered everything up, even getting rid of Ryan's body and all his records. If I hadn't seen Jake right then, Ryan might have just disappeared forever.

I would never forget Ryan now, as much for his own sake as for my failure. As for Jake, I was surprised that I stopped short of ensuring he ate from a tube the rest of his miserable life. As it was, I was satisfied with sending him to hospital's care for about a month. Before they dragged me off of the unconscious boy, I had managed to carve 'RYAN' onto his forehead with a spoon. If you ask me why a spoon, then you're hopeless and I want nothing further to do with you.

I made sure the cuts were nice and deep, going all the way down to the bone. And I wrote 'RYAN' backwards so he would see that name for the rest of his life, every time he looked in a mirror. It would remind him at least of the beating if not the young boy he had killed.

The Gormans covered that incident up as well. They beat me bad enough to send me to the clinic, but they did cover it up. I hate them to this day with an undying passion.

Back to the story: Megan's face was bleak to say the least, and touched with a pain I had hoped she had never had to know. (I know I'm repeating myself but I'm resetting the tone. I'm sure you will be able to cope.) I suppose that her sleeping expression should have told me how serious my situation was, but I felt fine. In fact, right then, I felt pretty damn good, so I thought nothing of her worry other than how to abate it. Before I realized what I was doing, I had jumped out of the bed and was moving towards her. But just as my feet touched the cold linoleum floor, I froze.

Catheter. I had a catheter on.

I checked that everything was still attached that was supposed to be as I eased back towards the bed. I peeled the offensive... thing... off of me, which wasn't any fun either. I carefully laid it down on the bed, and then, quietly, cussed it out.

But I was proud of myself: despite feeling like my genitals had been ripped off, all I had done was squeak. It was a very high-pitched squeak, but still only a squeak.

I tucked the catheter attachment under the mattress, and then turned to the still sleeping Megan. As I lifted her out of the chair, she seemed so small, almost weightless. After checking the bed for stains and finding it relatively fresh, I laid Megan down and tucked her in. I happened to look up and caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror.

And now I began to see the extent of the Change.

I rushed to the bathroom that adjoined my room. I smiled briefly at all of Megan's things strewn about the bathroom, but I refocused quickly. The door had a full length mirror on the back of it so that was where I started. I was absolutely shocked. Either I had been in a coma for about five or ten years, or I was a quite a bit more unique than I had ever imagined.

I quickly ruled out years having gone by on Megan's appearance alone, so that left me with being a freak of nature. That was okay, I thought. I could deal with it if Megan could, and, although she may have been having trouble with it, she was obviously willing to cope with it. She was still with me. I can't tell you how much that simple fact meant to me right then.

I now stood about 5'10", but I was still stocky. I had stripped off my hospital gown to see all the changes at once. My body retained the same proportion I was used to: long muscular torso, barrel chest, long arms thick with muscle, and relatively short legs even more heavily muscled than my arms. If you think I was emphasizing all the muscle, I assure you, it was not due to vanity, but rather my shock. If my body was still in such good condition, I didn't think I could have been out of it for much more than a week.

Then I saw my face, and again I was shocked. I was only barely recognizable as the same person; as a young orphan by the name of Nathan Snow Winter. It would be more likely to assume I was an elder, if distant, cousin. My scars had disappeared and the color of my skin darkened from simply pale to this light olive tone that just screams health and vigor. The shape of my jaw had change, lengthening and becoming more pronounced. My cheek bones were also more prominent now, serving to emphasize my deep set eyes. And my nose, which had never been broken despite all my fights, was transformed as well. Before my nose had been a normal nose. Now, while still normally proportioned, it seemed to contain a subtle curve that drew the observer to my eyes and then my full lips, which seemed to be my only prominent feature left unchanged. My hair had turned from a light reddish-brown to almost black with red highlights. It was still the same unruly mane, but it looked like it had more curls to it now. My face was broader emphasizing the loss of what little baby fat I had, giving my features an almost harsh cast to them.

Then there were my eyes. Before the Change, as I call it, my eyes had been a very odd shade of blue that, in the right light, looked like a dark gray. Now they were so light a shade up blue, my irises appeared white, with only a slight contrast to the rest of my eye. It looked like I should be blind.

Then my thoughts turned toward Megan and what she must think about all this. Was she repelled: no, such would not appear to be the case as presented by her presence in my room. Her presence in my room, in my bed. Megan was in my bed. I was naked, not ten feet away, and she was in my bed wearing nothing more than some sweatpants and a t-shirt. I could—.

I managed to rein in my racing thoughts there and took a deep breath to calm myself. When I opened my eyes, I was presented with one final aspect of my change: my erect penis was inches bigger, and my balls looked a bit bigger as well. Before, I had been an average six inches, but now, after the Change I must be close to ten inches and very thick. That was almost as big a surprise as all the rest put together, but I'm not sure why I felt that way. At least this particular change had no negative side that I could immediately see.

It was too much for me to deal with, too much to process at once. I felt, quite simply, overwhelmed. So I did the only logical thing I could do: I climbed into bed with the beautiful woman I loved and went to sleep.

I (wait for it, wait for it) woke up (YES) to the sound of Megan crying. The absolute worst way to start a day, but it was mitigated by the fact that I was snuggled up to her back, my arms wrapped around her waist. She and I fit together perfectly, her head nestled right below my chin and our hips coming even. Before I had woken up enough to formulate a statement to let Megan know I was alright, the feel of her ass against my crotch, even through my hospital gown and her sweats, woke another part of me.

As I started to press between her ass cheeks, Megan immediately stopped crying and froze. As I continued to grow, she slowly ground her ass back into me, eliciting a groan from me. She let out a shriek and, faster than I believed she could move, turned around in my arms and threw herself atop me. Her legs straddling my hips, she plastered her body to mine and rained kisses down on my face and lips. At something of a loss as to what to do, I simply held her to me tightly and returned what kisses I could.