Chapter 3: Mark's First Time With A Man
The silence after Mark left was a physical thing. It pressed in on Dan from all sides, heavier than the lingering ache in his bones. He stayed on the floor for a long time, listening to the distant city sounds that did nothing to fill the void inside his apartment. The cracked glass of the photo frame winked at him from the floorboards. Two stupid kids with sunburns and bad haircuts, frozen in a simpler time.
He finally moved, limbs stiff and protesting. A shower. Again. This one was cold, a brutal rinse meant to shock his system back into some semblance of order. He scrubbed until his skin was raw, trying to erase the feeling of Mark’s hands, Mark’s mouth, Mark inside him. It was impossible. The memory was layered now, a palimpsest of sensation. The softness of Danielle’s skin under Mark’s touch, and the echo of that touch on his own, harder body. The profound, filling stretch—first one reality, then another.
He pulled on clean boxers and sweatpants, avoiding the mirror. He knew what he’d see: himself. Just Dan. The curse had receded, its price paid in sweat and come and shattered friendship. It should feel like a victory. It felt like a amputation.
For three days, his phone was a dead thing. No calls. No texts. The absence was louder than any argument. Dan moved through his apartment like a ghost, picking up the pieces of the photo, throwing out the empty beer bottles from a lifetime ago. He worked on autopilot, designing logos that felt meaningless. The cluttered comfort of his space had turned accusatory. Every corner held a memory of Mark: crashing on that couch, writing stupid songs on that guitar, arguing about movies in that kitchen.
On the fourth evening, a key turned in the lock.
Dan froze, halfway to the kitchen with a coffee mug. His heart hammered against his ribs. The door swung open, and Mark stepped in. He looked like hell. Dark circles bruised his eyes, his hair was unwashed, and he wore the same hoodie he’d had on when he fled. He smelled of stale coffee and unresolved panic.
They stared at each other across the room. The air grew thick, charged with everything unsaid.
“You still have your key,” Dan said finally, his voice flat.
“Yeah.” Mark shoved his hands in his pockets, didn’t move from the doorway. “I… I needed to see you.”
“See me?” A bitter laugh escaped Dan. “You got an eyeful. Mission accomplished.”
“Stop.” Mark’s voice was tight, strained. “Just fucking stop with that. This isn’t… this isn’t about the curse anymore.”
“Then what’s it about, Mark?” Dan put the mug down with a sharp click. “What could this possibly be about?”
Mark’s gaze traveled over him—over the broad shoulders under a thin cotton tee, the stubble on his jaw, the familiar set of his mouth. It wasn’t the look of a friend. It was the same hungry, searching look he’d given Danielle. It didn’t waver. It intensified.
“It’s about this,” Mark said, his voice dropping to a raw whisper. “It’s about you. Right now.”
Dan felt a jolt, a terrifying lurch in his stomach. “You’re confused. You’re fucked up from what happened. You don’t know what you want.”
“I know I haven’t slept,” Mark said, taking a step forward. His eyes were blazing. “I know I can’t eat. I close my eyes and I feel it. I feel you. Not just her. You. The sound you made when I… when I was inside… it’s the same sound you made when we were kids and I shoved you into the lake. It’s your sound.”
“That’s insane,” Dan breathed, but he took a step back, his back hitting the kitchen counter.
“Is it?” Mark was close now, invading his space. The familiar scent of him was layered with sweat and desperation. “I remember your hands on my back. Your nails. Your legs around me. That was you, Dan. It was always you.”
Dan’s head was swimming. The logic was watertight and horrifying. The curse hadn’t created something new; it had revealed something hidden, stripped it bare, and now they were both staring at the raw nerve. “So what? What does that mean? You’re… into guys now?”
“I’m into you,” Mark snarled, as if the distinction was everything. He reached out, his hand hovering near Dan’s arm, not quite touching. “It’s like you’re a fucking drug. I had a taste and now I’m crawling out of my skin. I look at you and I don’t see my best friend. I see the person I fucked against that wall. I see the mouth I came on. And I want…” He broke off, chest heaving.
“You want what?” Dan challenged, anger rising to mask the terrifying thrill shooting through his veins.
“I want to do it again,” Mark said, the words leaving him in a rush. “I want to know if it’s the same. I want to know if it was just the curse, or if it’s… you.”
The admission hung between them, obscene and magnetic. Dan’s own body was betraying him, a slow, heated response coiling low in his gut. The memory wasn’t just psychological. It was cellular. His skin remembered the weight, the friction, the shocking, full feeling of being taken. And it wasn’t a woman’s memory. It was his.
“You’re asking me to…” Dan couldn’t finish.
“I’m not asking,” Mark said, and the quiet certainty in his voice was more devastating than a shout. He finally closed the last inch, his hand wrapping around Dan’s bicep. The grip was firm, possessive. “I’m telling you I’m going out of my mind. And you’re the only one who knows. You’re the only one who was there.”
He leaned in, his forehead resting against Dan’s temple. His breath was hot. “Let me try. Just once. Let me see.”
It was the worst idea in the history of ideas. It was the only idea left. Dan turned his head, just slightly. Their lips were a breath apart. He saw the conflict in Mark’s eyes, the fear, and beneath it, the raw, unvarnished want. It mirrored his own.
He didn’t consent with words. He closed the distance.
The kiss was nothing like before. It was two men. Stubble scratched. The angle was awkward, then fiercely right. Mark’s mouth was demanding, hungry, his tongue pushing past Dan’s lips with a groan that vibrated through both of them. Dan grabbed the front of Mark’s hoodie, pulling him closer, kissing him back with a fury that felt like grief. This was the point of no return. There was no curse to blame now.
Mark’s hands were everywhere, rougher than they’d been with Danielle, mapping the terrain of Dan’s body with frantic urgency. He pushed the t-shirt up, his palms sliding over the hard planes of Dan’s stomach and chest, thumbing a nipple. Dan gasped into his mouth, his own hands fumbling for the waistband of Mark’s jeans.
They stumbled out of the kitchen, a tangle of limbs and harsh breaths, falling onto the worn living room rug. Mark yanked Dan’s sweatpants and boxers down in one fierce motion. Dan’s cock sprang free, already hard, flushed and leaking. Mark stared at it, his expression one of awe and hunger.
“Fuck,” Mark breathed. He wrapped his hand around it, his grip tight and unfamiliar. The calluses on his fingers from guitar strings were a new, exquisite torture. He stroked once, twice, his thumb smearing the pre-come over the head.
Dan arched off the floor, a broken sound escaping him. “Mark…”
“I need to taste you,” Mark said, more to himself than to Dan. He shoved Dan’s legs apart and lowered his head.
The first hot, wet swipe of Mark’s tongue along his length was an electric shock. Dan cried out, his hands flying to Mark’s hair. It was blasphemy. It was divinity. Mark took him deeper, his mouth a slick, tight heaven, sucking with a focus that was almost violent. He gagged, pulled back, spit, and took him again, deeper, learning the shape and feel of him with a desperate curiosity.
“I’m gonna come,” Dan warned, hips jerking.
Mark pulled off, his lips swollen and wet. “Not yet.” He scrambled up, frantically undoing his own jeans, pushing them down his thighs. His cock stood thick and angry, curving upward. He looked from it to Dan’s, his eyes wide. “How…?”
There was no lube. There was only spit and pre-come and insane necessity. Mark spat into his hand, slicking himself roughly. He positioned himself between Dan’s thighs, pushing Dan’s legs up and back, exposing him. The head of his cock pressed against a place that was utterly, terrifyingly virgin in this form.
Dan’s eyes locked with his. He saw the fear, the question. He gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod.
Mark pushed.
The burn was unreal. A white-hot, tearing intrusion. Dan screamed, a raw, animal sound that scraped his throat. His body clenched, fighting the invasion.
“Oh god, oh fuck, you’re so tight,” Mark chanted, his voice trembling. He pushed deeper, past the ring of muscle, burying himself to the hilt inside a heat so fierce it stole his breath. He collapsed on top of Dan, their bodies glued together with sweat, both of them shaking.
For a moment, they didn’t move. Dan breathed through the pain, feeling himself being stretched to the point of breaking, filled beyond capacity. It was different. It was more. It was Mark, in him. The final barrier was gone.
Mark began to move. Short, shallow thrusts at first, letting Dan’s body adjust. The pain began to melt, transmuting into a deep, full, impossible pleasure. Each thrust rubbed against something inside him that lit up his nervous system. He wrapped his legs around Mark’s waist, pulling him in deeper.
“Is it…?” Mark grunted, his face buried in Dan’s neck.
“Yes,” Dan gasped. “Fuck, yes. Don’t stop.”
The pace quickened. Mark fucked him with a single-minded intensity, each slam driving Dan into the rug. The sounds were filthy, wet, the slap of skin on skin echoing in the room. Dan reached between them, fisting his own cock, stroking in time with Mark’s thrusts. The duality was obliterating. He was being fucked, and he was fucking his own fist, and it was all one crashing wave of sensation.
“You feel that?” Mark growled, his thrusts becoming erratic, pounding. “You feel me in you? This is me. This is us.”
Dan was hurtling toward the edge, his orgasm building from a place deeper than any he’d known. “Come in me,” he heard himself beg, the words filthy and perfect. “Fill me up.”
With a shattered cry, Mark obeyed. He drove in one last time, shuddering, and Dan felt the hot, pulsing rush deep inside his own body. The feeling triggered his own climax. He came in thick, violent stripes across his stomach and chest, his vision whiting out, his body clamping down on Mark’s in rhythmic pulses that milked him dry.
Mark collapsed, a dead weight. They stayed like that, joined, breathing in ragged unison, covered in sweat and come.
Slowly, reality seeped back in. The itch of the rug. The chill of the air on wet skin. The throbbing, bruised feeling between his legs.
Mark carefully pulled out. Dan winced at the sudden, empty ache and the warm trickle that followed. Mark rolled onto his back beside him, staring at the ceiling. Neither spoke for a long time.
Dan finally turned his head. Mark’s profile was stark, his jaw clenched. A single tear traced a path through the sweat on his temple.
“So,” Dan said, his voice hoarse. “Was it the same?”
Mark didn’t look at him. He kept staring upward, as if the answer were written in the cracks of the plaster. The silence stretched, deeper and more profound than before. The experiment was over. They had their data.
And it had ruined everything, forever.
Mark’s silence was the answer. It was a solid thing, a third presence in the room that sat on Dan’s chest. Dan looked away from the tear track, back at the water-stained ceiling. His body felt used, a contested territory. The warm trickle between his thighs was cooling into a sticky, shameful glue.
“I should go,” Mark said, but made no move to get up.
“Yeah.” Dan’s voice was scraped hollow. “You should.”
Neither moved. The clock in the hall ticked, measuring the new, ugly quiet. After a century, Mark sat up. He wiped his hand over his face, smearing the salt and sweat. He looked down at the mess on Dan’s stomach, at his own softening cock, glistening and spent. His expression was unreadable.
He stood, pulling his jeans up with stiff, mechanical movements. The sound of the zipper was obscenely loud. He didn’t look at Dan as he walked to the door. He paused, his hand on the knob, shoulders hunched.
“I’ll, uh. I’ll text you,” he said, the lie hanging in the air like smoke.
The door clicked shut. Dan lay on the rug, the fibers scratching his back, and let the emptiness swallow him whole.
A week passed. The text never came. Dan existed in a state of suspension, jumping at every creak in the building, half-hoping, half-terrified it was Mark’s key in the lock again. The shame didn’t fade; it mutated. It mixed with the ghost sensations that haunted his body—the deep, full ache, the specific tenderness when he sat. He’d catch himself staring at the wall where the photo had hung, now just a faint, clean rectangle on the plaster, and his skin would grow hot.
The curse, for its part, was silent. No tremors, no pain. It was as if it was satisfied, digesting the chaos it had orchestrated. This, Dan realized, was its true cruelty. It gave him just enough normalcy to feel the depth of the wound.
On the eighth night, the knock came. Not the key. A tentative, broken rhythm.
Dan knew. He opened the door. Mark stood there, holding a six-pack of the cheap beer they used to drink in college. A peace offering that was a decade too late for what was between them now. He looked sober, shattered, and determined.
“Hey,” Mark said.
“Hey.”
They drank on the couch, a foot of space between them. The beer tasted like ash. They talked about nothing—a new album, a stupid meme, the leak in Mark’s bathroom sink. The normal words were painted over a screaming subtext. Every glance was a collision.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Mark finally said, his voice low, cutting through the bullshit. He wasn’t looking at Dan. He was staring at his own hands, clenched around his bottle. “I try. I go out. I look at women. I look at men. Nothing computes. It’s just… noise. Then I think about you. Under me. On that rug. And it’s the only thing that’s clear.”
Dan took a long swig. “So what does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” Mark finally turned his head. His eyes were dark pools of confused need. “I just know I need it again. I need to know it wasn’t a mistake.”
“It was a mistake,” Dan said, the truth sharp on his tongue.
“Then let’s make it again.” Mark put his bottle down. The finality of the click was a starting pistol. He moved the short distance, his hand coming up to cup Dan’s jaw. His thumb stroked the stubble. “Please.”
The ‘please’ undid him. It was the ghost of his best friend, speaking through the mask of this desperate stranger. Dan leaned in. This kiss was slower, a grim exploration. It tasted of hops and despair. Mark pushed him back onto the couch cushions, his weight a familiar anchor in the storm.
There was less frenzy this time, more dreadful purpose. Mark peeled Dan’s shirt off, mouth following his hands, biting at a nipple, sucking a bruise over his heart. He worked Dan’s sweats down, taking him into his mouth with a practiced ease that made Dan gasp. The pleasure was immediate and intense, a direct line to his spine. Mark deep-throated him, his nose pressing into Dan’s pubic bone, and Dan fisted his hands in Mark’s hair, hips lifting off the couch.
“Fuck, Mark, just like that,” he groaned.
Mark pulled off, breathing hard. “I want you on your hands and knees.”
The command sent a shock through Dan. He complied, turning over on the couch, presenting himself. He heard the rip of a condom packet—a new, heartbreaking form of caution—and the slick sound of Mark stroking himself. The blunt, rubber-tipped head pressed against him.
“Relax,” Mark murmured, one hand steady on Dan’s hip.
He pushed in. The stretch was easier this time, a burning familiarity that quickly gave way to a deep, grinding fullness. Mark set a relentless pace from the start, each thrust punching the air from Dan’s lungs. The couch creaked in protest. Mark’s other hand snaked around, wrapping around Dan’s cock, stroking him in a tight, twisting rhythm that matched his drives.
“You take me so good,” Mark grunted, his voice thick. “So fucking good. This tight ass is mine.”
The crude words, in Mark’s voice, ignited him. Dan pushed back, meeting each thrust, the slapping of their skin a vulgar metronome. The pleasure was a coil, winding tighter and tighter in his gut. He was close, so close, the world narrowing to the piston-friction inside him and the tight ring of Mark’s fist.
Then, the pain.
It didn’t start as transformation pain. It was a sharp, wrong cramp deep in his belly, a internal wrenching that stole his breath. He froze.
“Don’t stop,” Mark panted, slamming into him, mistaking his stillness for something else.
The cramp twisted, becoming a familiar, terrible compression. Oh, god. No. Not now. A wave of nausea washed over him. His bones didn't just ache; they sang a dissonant, grinding song. He felt his pelvis shift, the structure altering, a deep, internal realignment that made him cry out.
“Dan?” Mark’s thrusts faltered.
Dan tried to speak, but a gasp was all that emerged. His skin was on fire, crawling, tightening and softening in patches. The hand Mark had on his hip seemed to sink into suddenly pliant flesh. His perspective shifted, the room tilting as his spine re-curved. The thick, hard length of Mark still inside him felt different—larger, impossibly invasive as the very channel it occupied changed around it.
Mark pulled out abruptly with a wet, shocking sound. Dan—Danielle—collapsed onto the couch cushions, her body convulsing through the final stages. Her hair spilled long and auburn over her shoulders. Her breasts, heavy and sensitive, pressed against the rough fabric. The entire transformation had taken less than ten seconds, a violent, biological eruption mid-act.
She lay there, trembling, utterly vulnerable. The condom-clad cock that had just been inside her was now a grotesque, unfamiliar intrusion that had been torn away. Mark stared, his own erection still jutting out, slick with lube and now, with the evidence of her change. His face was a mask of horror and a dark, undeniable arousal.
“Oh, fuck,” he breathed, not in disgust, but in a kind of awed terror.
He looked from her face, twisted in pain and shame, down to his own cock. Without a word, driven by a impulse so base it bypassed all reason, he knelt on the floor. He gripped her hips again, his fingers digging into the new softness of her waist. He positioned himself, the tip of his cock nudging against her once more, now slick with her own wetness from the change. She was already soaked.
“Mark, don’t,” Danielle sobbed, but it was a weak protest, lost in the shudder of her own body.
He pushed back in. The fit was seamless, perfect, the curse’s obscene design. He filled her completely, a smooth, deep penetration that made them both moan. He fucked her now with a shattered reverence, his pace slower, deeper, as if trying to feel the difference in every cell.
“You feel that?” he whispered, his face buried in her new, long hair. “You feel how you’re made for this? How you’re always made for me?”
It was the most devastating thing he could have said. She came around him, a silent, shaking climax wrenched from the turmoil. He followed, spilling into the condom with a broken cry, his body shuddering against her changed form.
Afterward, he pulled out and simply sat on the floor, back against the couch, head in his hands. Danielle curled into herself, the wetness between her legs belonging to two different realities. The cracked photo frame was gone, but the clean patch on the wall stared at them, a blank space for a picture that could never be taken again.
The curse wasn't satisfied. It was just beginning its next experiment.