Chapter 2: The Hunger Wakes
The door clicked shut behind her, and the sound of the lock engaging felt final in a way that made Birch's stomach flip. Willow stood with her back to the door, arms still crossed, her eyes moving over the disaster zone of his room—the rumpled sheets, the damp patch on the mattress, the towel he'd dropped on the floor in his rush to clean himself up. The desk lamp flickered, casting her face in alternating stripes of gold and shadow.
"You going to answer me?" she said.
"I don't know how."
"Start with the obvious." She pushed off the door and walked toward him, her boots making soft thuds on the cheap carpet. "You've been acting weird for days. You cornered me in a movie theater and made me jerk you off. You texted me at two in the morning like the world was ending. So." She stopped a foot away, close enough that he could smell her again—that citrus shampoo, sharp and clean. "What the fuck is going on?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it. The truth was sitting in his chest like a stone, heavy and impossible, and he didn't know how to drag it out.
"I got exposed to something," he said finally. "In the lab. Three days ago."
Her eyebrows lifted. "What kind of something?"
"I don't know. It was in one of Malgrave's vials. It cracked, I got it on my hands, it absorbed into my skin." He looked down at his palms, half-expecting to see the iridescent sheen still glistening there. "Nothing happened at first. But then—" He gestured vaguely at himself. "This."
Willow was quiet for a moment. He could practically see the gears turning behind her eyes, the calculations, the risk assessment. That was the thing about Willow. She didn't panic. She processed.
"Show me," she said.
He looked up. "What?"
"Show me what's happening. You said it got worse." Her voice was steady, but there was something underneath it—a current of something that wasn't quite fear and wasn't quite excitement. "Show me."
His hands went to the waistband of his sweats. Then stopped. "You don't have to—"
"I'm asking."
He swallowed. His mouth was dry. The room felt too hot, too small, the walls pressing in like they were trying to crush him. But Willow was standing there, waiting, and her eyes were fixed on him with an intensity that made his skin prickle.
He pushed the sweats down. They caught on his erection, and he had to work them over the head, and when they finally dropped to his ankles, Willow's breath hitched.
"Holy shit," she whispered.
He looked down at himself. He'd seen it in the bathroom mirror earlier, right after he'd woken up from the dream, and the sight hadn't gotten any less surreal. His cock jutted out from his body like something that belonged to a different species—long and thick, flushed dark at the tip, the shaft lined with prominent veins that pulsed with his heartbeat. The head glistened with precum, a steady leak that had already dribbled down the length of him and left a damp trail on his thigh.
But that wasn't the only thing that had changed.
His balls hung low and heavy between his legs, swollen to the size of a fist, maybe bigger. The skin was taut and flushed, and they swung with a weight that he could feel all the way up in his gut. And around them—around everything—a thick, dark thatch of pubic hair had spread, coarser than what he'd had before, curling up his stomach and down his thighs, like something wild had taken root in his skin.
"It's bigger," Willow said. Her voice had gone hoarse. "It's—fuck, Birch, it's a lot bigger."
"I know."
"Does it hurt?"
"No." He shook his head. "It's the opposite. It's like—" He wrapped his hand around himself and squeezed, and a low sound escaped his throat. "It's like I can't stop."
Willow stepped closer. Her hand reached out, hovering an inch from his chest, like she was waiting for permission. He nodded, and she touched him—just her fingertips, light against his sternum, trailing down through the hair on his stomach, following the trail to where it thickened around his groin. He shivered.
"How much bigger?" she asked.
He stroked himself once, slow. "I don't know. A lot. I measured it last night—" He stopped, embarrassed.
"You measured it?"
"I wanted to know." He felt his cheeks burn. "Seven inches. Before. It was seven inches."
"And now?"
He didn't answer. He just guided her hand to his cock, wrapping her fingers around the shaft the way he'd done in the theater. Her eyes went wide. Her fingers didn't even come close to touching around him.
"Birch," she breathed.
"I know."
"This is—" She squeezed, and his hips jerked forward. "This isn't normal."
"I know." He was panting now, just a little. "I know it's not. But I can't stop thinking about it. About—" He swallowed. "About you."
The words hung in the air between them. Willow's hand was still on his cock, still wrapped around him, and she was staring at him with an expression he couldn't read—something caught between shock and hunger and something softer underneath.
"You want me to suck it," she said.
It wasn't a question.
"God, yes," he said. "Please. I've never—I mean, I've never—"
"You've never had a blowjob?"
He shook his head. The admission should have been embarrassing, but he was too far gone to care. His body was screaming at him, every nerve ending on fire, and Willow's hand was on his cock and she was looking at him like he was something worth wanting.
"Fuck," she muttered. Then she pushed him backward, toward the bed, and he sat down hard on the edge of the mattress. The sheets were still damp beneath him, and the smell of his earlier release rose up around them, musky and undeniable. Willow didn't seem to mind. She knelt between his knees, her hands on his thighs, and looked up at him.
"You're sure?" she asked.
"I've never been more sure of anything."
She smiled—a small, wicked curve of her lips—and then she leaned forward and licked the tip of his cock.
The world went white.
Birch's hands fisted in the bedsheets. His hips bucked, and he made a sound he'd never made before, something between a gasp and a growl. Her tongue was warm and wet, dragging across the head, lapping up the precum that had been leaking steadily from his slit. She tasted him, humming low in her throat, and the vibration traveled up his shaft and straight into his brain.
"Fuck," he gasped. "Fuck, Willow—"
She didn't answer. She just opened her mouth and took him in.
Not all of him—there was too much of him for that—but enough. Her lips stretched around the head, her tongue pressing flat against the underside, and she sucked gently, cheeks hollowing. The sensation was overwhelming. Hot and wet and tight, and Birch had never felt anything like it, had never even imagined anything like it, and his hands flew to her head without thinking.
"Sorry," he panted. "Sorry, I just—"
She pulled off him with a wet pop and looked up. Her lips were slick, her eyes dark. "It's okay. Do what you need."
He stared at her. "What?"
"Use my mouth." She said it like it was nothing. Like it was obvious. "I want to feel it."
He didn't need to be told twice. His hands tangled in her hair—dark and soft, and he'd dreamed about touching it for years—and he guided her back down, not forcing, just urging. She took him again, deeper this time, and he felt the head of his cock hit the back of her throat. She gagged, just a little, and the sound sent a jolt of pleasure straight to his balls.
"Shit," he whispered. "Shit, you feel so good."
She pulled back, then forward again, establishing a rhythm. Her mouth was hot and slick and perfect, and every time she took him deep, he felt the tightness of her throat flutter around him. His hips started moving on their own—small thrusts at first, tentative, testing. She didn't pull away. If anything, she leaned into it, her hands gripping his thighs, her eyes fluttering shut.
"Can I—" He stopped, breathless. "Can I go deeper?"
She nodded, and her mouth opened wider, and he thrust forward, harder than before. This time he felt himself slide into her throat, all the way in, and the feeling was so intense—so impossibly tight and wet and perfect—that his vision blurred at the edges.
"Oh fuck," he groaned. "Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—"
He was fucking her mouth now. There was no other word for it. His hips were pumping, his hands were gripping her hair, and he was driving himself into her throat with a rhythm that was fast and erratic and completely out of his control. He'd never done this before—never even come close—and he had no idea what he was doing, but Willow was taking it, her eyes watering, her hands clutching at his thighs, and the sounds she was making—wet, choked, desperate—only made him harder.
"You like that?" he heard himself say. The words came from somewhere deep, somewhere primal. "You like my cock in your mouth?"
She moaned. The vibration traveled up his shaft, and he nearly lost it right then. His balls were drawing up tight, heavy and full, and he could feel the pressure building at the base of his spine, hot and urgent and inevitable.
"Willow," he gasped. "Willow, I'm gonna—"
She pulled back just enough to speak, her lips still brushing against the head of his cock. "Do it. Come in my mouth."
That was all it took.
He thrust forward one last time, burying himself to the base in her throat, and then he was coming—hot and thick and endless, spilling down her throat in waves. His whole body locked up, muscles tensing, and the sound he made was something between a groan and a roar. His hands fisted in her hair. His hips jerked. And Willow swallowed, her throat working around him, taking everything he had.
The orgasm seemed to go on forever. Longer than anything he'd ever experienced, longer than should have been possible. His balls emptied themselves into her mouth, and still she swallowed, and still he came, until finally—finally—the last pulse faded and he slumped backward onto the bed, gasping for air.
Willow pulled away. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and her eyes were still dark, still hungry, but there was something else there now—something that looked almost like confusion.
"Are you okay?" he asked, still breathless.
She nodded slowly. "Yeah. I just—" She paused, frowning. "I feel weird."