Chapter 1: Iron and Moonlight
The garage gym was a sauna. Brock’s back touched the worn leather of the bench, the familiar sting of sweat in his eyes as he pushed the loaded barbell upward. His muscles, a dense network of corded strength, strained with the effort. Across from him, Marco spotted, his own broad shoulders casting a shadow in the dim light of the single flickering bulb.
“One more, brother. You got it,” Marco grunted, his eyes fixed on the bar.
Brock exhaled sharply, driving the weight up. The metal clanged as he re-racked it. He sat up, his shaved head glistening, and rubbed a thick hand over his bearded jaw. A strange, cold flutter moved through his gut, like a cube of ice sliding down his spine.
“Hold up,” Brock muttered, his voice deeper than the weights he lifted. He stared at his own hands, the knuckles white. “I don’t feel right, bro.”
Marco straightened up, frowning. “What’s up? You eat something weird?”
“No. It’s… inside.” Brock stood, and as he did, his knees buckled. He caught himself on the bench rack, the metal groaning under his grip. A visible shiver racked his massive frame. “Something’s… wrong.”
Then Marco saw it. The change wasn’t graceful. It was a violent, shuddering compression. Brock’s spine seemed to contract with a series of sickening pops. He was shrinking, his towering height dissolving downwards as if the bones themselves were melting and reforming. His shoulders, once like boulders, sloped inward, narrowing.
Brock cried out—a sharp, pained gasp that choked off into something else. His beard, that thick russet fur, was receding back into his skin like a time-lapse of a tide going out, leaving smooth, poreless cheeks. The heavy trapezius muscles melted away, sculpting a slender, elegant neck.
“Brock!” Marco lunged forward, but froze, horrified and captivated.
The gray tank top, now comically loose, began to tent and stretch over Brock’s chest. Two distinct swells pushed against the fabric, growing, rounding, becoming heavy and full. They strained the cotton, the outline of nipples becoming visible. Brock looked down at himself, his eyes—still his own, still terrified—wide with disbelief. He opened his mouth.
“Help me,” he pleaded, but the voice was wrong. It was higher, breathy, tinged with a feminine lilt that scratched at the edges of his familiar baritone.
The transformation accelerated. His hips cracked audibly, flaring outwards in a sudden, brutal jut. His workout shorts, already loose, were now stretched taut over a rear that ballooned into absurd, perfect curvature. The fabric of his pants ripped at the seams with a soft tear. Platinum blonde hair, sleek and shiny, cascaded from his scalp, falling past newly delicate shoulders. His features refined, sharpening into a porcelain doll’s beauty: a small, straight nose, high cheekbones, and lips that plumped into a glossy, pouty rosebud.
Where a 280-pound bodybuilder had stood, now swayed a woman of maybe 130 pounds, a voluptuous fantasy carved from Brock’s stolen mass. She—he—stumbled, looking down at the hands that were now slim and manicured.
“Marco?” The voice was pure, dizzy confusion. It was Brock’s awareness, screaming from behind new, brilliantly blue eyes. Then the expression on that beautiful face shifted. The terror dissolved, smoothed over by a vacant, dreamy curiosity. A slow, seductive smile bloomed on the pouty lips. “Whoa. That was, like, a trip.”
The new creature ran her hands over her inflated breasts, cupping them with a delighted gasp. “These are amazing.” She looked at Marco, her gaze traveling over his stunned, shirtless form with open hunger. “Hey there, big guy. You’re all… sweaty.”
Marco recoiled. “Brock. Fight it, man. Stay with me.”
“Brock’s sleeping,” the woman giggled, taking a swaying step forward. Her movements were all hips and suggestion. “I’m… I don’t know who I am yet. But you look like you could show me a real good time.” She reached out a slender hand to trace Marco’s pectoral.
Marco caught her wrist, gently but firmly. “No. You’re Brock. You’re my best friend. You need to focus.”
For a second, the flirtatious glaze cleared. The eyes filled with raw, panicked recognition. “M-Marco… it’s pushing me down… I can’t…” The Brock-voice was a whisper, a ghost in the machine.
Then the woman’s face went slack again, the vapid smile returning. She pressed her body against Marco’s. “You’re so strong. I love that.”
"I love that."
Her hand slid down his stomach, fingers tracing the line of his abs. Marco’s own muscles tensed, not from the touch, but from a revulsion that was entirely protective. This wasn’t some random woman. This was Brock.
He gripped both her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. "Listen to me. You are not this. You’re in there. Fight it."
She pouted, a perfect, glossy expression of disappointment. "You’re no fun." She tried to wiggle closer, but his hold was immovable. A flicker of something else crossed her face—frustration, then a blank confusion. Her brilliant blue eyes drifted past him, catching their reflection in the grimy full-length mirror propped against the wall.
She froze.
For three full seconds, she just stared. The vacant, horny energy surrounding her seemed to crackle and die. Her breath hitched.
“Oh,” she whispered. The voice was different. Thinner, laced with a dawning, stomach-churning horror. It was Brock’s consciousness, clawing its way to the surface.
Her—his—gaze traveled down the reflection. The impossible, wasp-thin waist. The obscenely generous hips. The dramatic, jaw-dropping curve of the chest straining the ruined tank top.
“I’m… short,” the voice rasped, every word a struggle. A hand rose, trembling, to touch the plush, pillow-like lips. “I’ve got… god, I’ve got dick-sucking lips.” The hand flinched away as if burned, then hovered, shaking, over the massive, perfect rack. A choked, wet sound escaped the new throat. “And this… this is a titanic rack. A curse. A goddamn…”
The eyes in the mirror widened. The horrifying, pathetic puzzle pieces snapped together in the trapped mind behind them.
“Lydia,” he breathed, the name a curse and an epiphany. “The witch. Lydia did this.”
The clarity was a supernova, bright and devastating. It flooded the borrowed nervous system, overloading it. The horrified understanding in the blue eyes shattered, replaced by a glassy, inward-turning panic. A low whine started in the woman’s throat, building into a sharp, frantic keen.
A low whine started in the woman’s throat, building into a sharp, frantic keen. She clutched at her head, the long blonde hair slipping through her fingers.
“Brock, breathe,” Marco commanded, his own heart hammering against his ribs. He kept his hands on her shoulders, the bone and muscle there feeling terrifyingly fragile. “Look at me. Not the mirror. At me.”
Those brilliant blue eyes, swimming with a trapped-man’s panic, locked onto his. The pouty lips trembled. “Marco… it’s… I can feel everything. This skin. It’s… it’s all wrong. It’s too soft.” Her voice hitched, a sob tearing loose. “And there’s this… this weird warmth. Down there. I don’t…”
She swallowed hard, the fear momentarily overriding the curse’s programmed persona. A shudder of pure, undiluted dread racked the new, slender body. Her gaze dropped to the torn shorts. A fresh wave of horror dawned, worse than the rest.
“Shit,” she whispered, the word brittle. Her head snapped up, eyes wide and pleading. “I don’t want to check. Marco, bro. Please. You check.” The smaller, elegant hand fumbled for his, the grip surprisingly strong. “Check if my dick is gone. No homo.”
Before Marco could process the request, she was pulling his hand, guiding it toward the waistband of her ruined shorts. She was talking fast, a desperate stream of consciousness. “Just tell me it’s there, man. Just tell me it’s still–”
In her frantic movement, she backed up, seeking stability. Her back, now a smooth, tapering line, pressed flush against the solid wall of Marco’s chest and abdomen. The full, outrageous curve of her new ass settled directly against his crotch.
She froze. He froze.
A bolt of electric, unwanted awareness shot through Marco. The soft, impossible pressure. The heat of her through the thin fabric. The floral scent—where did that even come from?—that clung to her hair. It was a brutal, sensory overload.
Brock, still trapped, seemed oblivious to the physics of the contact, consumed by a more fundamental terror. “Well?” he begged, his feminine voice cracking. “Is it there?”
Marco’s jaw was clenched so tight his teeth ached. He carefully, with monumental control, extracted his hand from her guiding grasp. He set both his hands back on her shoulders, creating a sliver of space between them. The cool garage air rushed into the gap where their bodies had connected.
“It’s gone, Brock,” Marco said, his voice low and rough. He forced the words out. They felt like stones. “It’s all gone.”
Marco’s words hung in the damp garage air. “It’s all gone.”
The woman—Brock—stared at him. Her beautiful face was a blank slate for a heartbeat, two. Then the terror in her blue eyes dissolved, smothered by a haze of warm, fluttering confusion. She looked down at her own body, her hands skimming over the impossible geography of her hips, her stomach.
“Oh,” she breathed, the sound dripping with vacant wonder. “So that’s what that feeling is.” A giggle bubbled up, light and airy. “It’s all… tingly. And warm. Really warm.”
She shifted her weight, and a soft, slick sound, barely audible, made Marco freeze. His hands were still on her shoulders. He could feel the fine tremble in her new form, but it wasn’t from fear anymore. It was a vibration of restless, curious energy.
“Marco…” she purred, leaning into his hold, letting her head fall back against his chest. Her blonde hair smelled like candied apples. “My head feels so fuzzy. But my body… my body knows exactly what it wants.”
She turned in his grasp, suddenly fluid and sinuous. Her arms slid up around his neck. The full, heavy weight of her breasts pressed against him. Marco’s mind split. One part was screaming, cataloging every way this was wrong. The other was brutally, biologically aware of the soft, warm shape molded against him.
“You feel so good,” she whispered, her pouty lips brushing the stubble on his jaw. “So big and strong. My big, strong Marco.”
“Brock, stop,” he managed, his voice strangled. He tried to unloop her arms, but she was clinging with a surprising, needy strength.
“Why?” she pouted, grinding her hips against his thigh in a slow, deliberate circle. A breathy sigh escaped her. “Oh, wow. That… that is the spot. Do that again.”
Revulsion and a sharp, unwanted jolt of heat warred in Marco’s gut. He grabbed her wrists, forcing them down. “You’re not in control. This isn’t you.”
“It is now,” she sighed, her eyes half-lidded and dreamy. She was panting slightly, her glossy lips parted. Every shift of her body seemed calculated to ignite. She was a live wire of pure, dumb instinct. Her hand, small and soft, wriggled free of his loosened grip. Instead of fighting, it drifted down her own flat stomach, over the ripped fabric of the shorts.
Marco saw her intent a second too late. “Don’t—”
Her fingers slipped beneath the elastic waistband, seeking. Her eyes flew wide, not with horror this time, but with shocking, carnal discovery. “Whoa.”
“Brock, don’t touch—“
“It’s so wet,” she breathed, amazed. She looked up at him, her expression one of innocent, horny revelation. She pulled her hand free, holding her shimmering fingertips up to the flickering light. Then, with a gaze that was both vacant and intensely focused, she reached for Marco’s hand.
He tried to pull back, but she was insistent, guiding his large, calloused hand down with both of hers. The backs of his knuckles brushed the soft skin of her lower belly. He froze.
“Feel,” she whispered, a hypnotic command. She pressed his palm firmly against the damp, hot fabric between her legs. The heat was a brand. The material was soaked through. “See? It’s waiting for you.”
Marco’s brain short-circuited. The sensory input was too much: the overwhelming heat, the softness beneath his hand, the pleading, slutty look in his best friend’s eyes. His fingers twitched.
It was a mistake.
The slight pressure was all the invitation she needed. She moaned, a deep, throaty sound that belonged in a bedroom, not this grimy garage. She pushed herself against his hand, her hips rolling in a smooth, practiced undulation.
“Yeah… right there, baby,” she slurred, her consciousness clearly submerged beneath the curse’s programming. Her head lolled back. “That feels so right. So fucking right.”
Her own hand came up to cover his, pushing. The soaked fabric yielded. His index finger, trapped by her insistence, slipped inside the heat of her, encountering a shocking, slick tightness.
Brock’s body arched like a bow, a sharp, gasping cry tearing from her throat. “Deeper,” she begged, her voice a husky rasp. She was moving on his hand, using him, chasing a feeling with a single-minded hunger that was terrifying. “C’mon, Marco… deeper. Please. It needs you deeper.”
Marco yanked his hand back as if he’d been scalded. He stumbled away from her, breathing hard, his own body reacting with a traitorous, shameful urgency. He wiped his wet hand on his gym shorts, the act feeling grotesque.
She whimpered at the loss of contact, swaying on her feet, her expression dazed and desperately needy. “Why’d you stop? I was so close…”
A low, guttural sound erupted from her then—not a moan, but a pained, whining growl that seemed to come from her very core. She doubled over, clutching her stomach.
“Oh, no,” she gasped, and this time, the voice held a sliver of Brock’s raw panic. “Not again. Marco, it’s— it’s happening again!”