Chapter 1: The Wish and the Uncontrollable Swell
The final set left his muscles humming, a familiar burn that felt like victory. Kyle slumped against the cold locker, the metal biting into his damp shoulder. Around him, the empty locker room echoed with a hollow, institutional silence. The only sounds were the distant thump of a closing door and the persistent drip… drip… drip from a showerhead in the far stall.
He caught his reflection in the full-length mirror screwed to the opposite wall. Even exhausted, he looked the part. Broad shoulders, defined chest, the whole package. His eyes drifted lower, to where his grey athletic shorts clung to him, tight from sweat. He turned slightly, admiring the way the fabric stretched. A familiar, secret heat bloomed low in his gut. It was a private thing, a thought he never gave voice to, just a shape he liked in the mirror when no one was around.
“See something you like?”
The voice was like grating gravel, high and laced with a mean kind of laughter. Kyle spun, heart jackhammering against his ribs.
Perched on the bench like a bird of prey was the little man. He was maybe three feet tall, dressed in a suit of worn, moss-green velvet. His face was a roadmap of wrinkles, but his eyes were a bright, impossible blue, sparkling with a malice that made Kyle’s skin crawl. He held a slender, black pipe, and the smoke curling from it smelled of wet earth and rotten flowers.
“What the hell?” Kyle breathed, taking a step back. “How did you get in here?”
“A better question,” the leprechaun said, tapping his pipe against a boot heel, “is what were you just wishing for? So loud. So… specific. It’s like a dinner bell to my kind.”
Kyle’s face flushed hot. “I wasn’t… I didn’t say anything.”
“You don’t have to say it, laddie.” The creature’s grin widened, showing small, pointed teeth. “The wanting does the talking. And you, all alone with your muscles and your mirror… you want something absurd. Something impossible. I can smell the shame on it. Delicious.”
“Get out,” Kyle said, his voice tighter than he intended. He flexed his hands, the athlete’s instinct to dominate the space taking over. “Now.”
The leprechaun laughed, a sound like pebbles in a tin can. “Or what? You’ll crush me? Please. I’ve weathered storms that would snap your pretty spine.” He hopped down from the bench, his boots making no sound on the tile. “I’m here to grant you a wish. One. Consider it a… graduation gift.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Liar.” The blue eyes pinned him. “You’re bursting with it. That tight, controlled body of yours, screaming for one little loss of control. A secret wish. I’ll grant it. But my way.”
Kyle’s mouth was dry. The air felt thicker, charged. This was insane. He was hallucinating from exhaustion. But the little man was there, solid and stinking of magic. And a treacherous part of him, the part that stared too long in mirrors, was curious. “Your way?”
“The only way,” the leprechaun chirped, and with a flick of his wrist, he was gone.
Not gone. Behind him. Kyle felt a tiny, impossibly strong hand pat his backside twice. A jolt, like static electricity, zapped through him.
Then it began.
It was a deep, internal pressure, low in his gut. A fullness that wasn’t painful, but insistent. Unavoidable. He gasped, straightening up.
“What… what did you do?”
The leprechaun reappeared in front of the mirror, watching with rapt delight. “I gave you exactly what you pictured. Just let it happen.”
Kyle looked over his shoulder at his reflection. The grey fabric of his shorts was growing taut. Not just taut. It was stretching, the material straining over a curve that was expanding, firming, rounding out with a soft, audible creak of stitching.
“Stop it,” Kyle whispered, panic icing his veins.
But his body wasn’t listening. The sensation was flooding his system, a swelling pleasure that burned through the shame. It was everything he’d ever fantasized about and it was a nightmare. He could only watch, hypnotized, as his reflection transformed. The shorts were now obscenely tight, the fabric shining under the fluorescents, struggling to contain the relentless expansion. The curve pushed outward, rounding into a perfect, exaggerated dome that defied anatomy.
A low moan escaped him. Pleasure, pure and shocking, radiated from the epicenter of the change, a warm, buzzing tide that made his knees weak. He tried to clench, to fight it, but the muscles were no longer his to command.
“That’s it,” the leprechaun cooed from somewhere. “No control. That was always the wish, wasn’t it? To not have to be so controlled all the time.”
The pressure reached a peak, a breathtaking fullness. With a final, soft pop of a stressed seam, the growth stabilized. Kyle stumbled, his new center of gravity completely alien. He fell forward, catching himself on his hands and knees on the cold tile. The weight behind him was immense, a heavy, warm presence that kept him pitched forward. He was on all fours, breathing ragged, staring at the drain in the floor.
In the mirror’s reflection, he saw it. Saw himself. The powerful college athlete, brought to his knees. His shorts were a shredded second skin, the ridiculous, monumental swell of his backside dominating the reflection, a grotesque parody of his secret desire. Humiliation burned hotter than any pleasure.
The leprechaun walked into his line of sight, peering at him like a curious bug. “A sight to behold,” he said, his voice rich with satisfaction. “A monument to a simple, stupid want. It’s permanent, of course. My gifts always are. Enjoy explaining this to the world, laddie.”
He tipped his hat. A puff of that foul-smelling smoke enveloped him, and when it cleared, the bench was empty.
Kyle was alone. The drip of the shower counted the seconds. He tried to push himself up, but the weight was too much, the balance all wrong. He collapsed back onto his knees with a grunt, a prisoner in his own body. The reflection in the mirror stared back, a stranger. The chapter of his life defined by control was over. This was the first page of something new, and terrible.