Genesis - The Pucklebirch Event I

Luke heard the rattle of the bell as someone else walked into the convenience store. Luke knew everyone in Pucklebirch, but didn’t recognize the stranger He hoisted the case of beer off the display of perpetually discounted beverages and made his way up to the register. The stranger had gone straight to the counter. Luke figured the guy had come in to pay cash for gas, but instead the man seemed to be in deep conversation with the shop attendant. Luke pulled out his phone with his free hand and started to mindlessly look through the different messages.

“ — let’s see now, I turned off the highway about twenty minutes back. So I should double back to there?” The man was asking directions, but did not seem interested in hearing the answers. Luke doubted the cashier would be of much help anyway. Teresa Miller. She’d been a few years above him in school. He wondered why she still worked at the Stop and Go, but, deep down, everyone in Pucklebirch knew the answer to that question. Teresa was no different than the dozens of other young folk who showed such promise and bright future only to wind up stuck. Luke told himself, of course, that he wasn’t. He was better off. He had Julie. He had a good job. He could leave any time he wanted. Yet there he stood, waiting on some lost prick trying to find his way out of Pucklebirch before he got stuck too. “Alright, well, thanks anyway.” The man whirled about on his heel and spotted Luke. “Say, maybe you can help me. I was heading to Memphis and thought I’d do a little sightseeing, but got turned around. Before my phone stopped working, I had a route that would get me back on track without having to double back.”

Luke put the beer down and nodded to Teresa. “I think you want to head north from here. So turn left as you’re leaving. Go about five minutes up the road, and you’ll see a sign for Deer’s Creek on your right. Take that road for another ten minutes. You’ll run right back into the highway. Can’t miss it.”

The man smiled broadly. “Sign for Deer’s Creek on the right, turn and then straight back to the highway. Fantastic. Say, let me get your beer for you.” The man pulled out his wallet and offered a card to Teresa, “No! No, I insist. People should be rewarded for being helpful. Here, have a card. If you’re ever up north, give me a ring.” He slipped a business card out of his wallet and handed it to Luke with a gloved hand. “No receipt necessary, and thank you as well.” The man clapped Luke on the shoulder. “Thanks again, and enjoy the beer!” He gave them both a wave and headed out of the door, the bell dinging once again. Luke and Teresa watched him go, the former turning the glossy card over in his hand.

“What’s that say?” Teresa asked.

“Leo Polk’s Consulting Services,” Luke answered. “And a number. Fuck if I know what that’d be for.” He shoved the card in his pocket and grabbed the beer. “Have a good one Teresa.” He left with another ding of the bell. Teresa watched him go, frowning slightly. Luke Jones had been a scrawny nerd in high school. Teresa never gave him the time of day back then. Now she’d cut her own finger off for him to spend more than thirty seconds talking to her. She grabbed the romance novel from under the counter and went to her chair in the corner to wait for the next obnoxious bell.

Luke made his way out to the parking lot. He saw the back side of stranger’s sedan as it pulled out of the Stop and Go. Luke dropped the beer in the passenger seat of his truck and walked around to the driver’s side as he pulled the card out of his pocket. Sitting in the cab,he looked at the card more carefully, turning it over to see if he’d missed something other than the plain name and phone number on a slightly grey background. He ran his thumb over the front, wondering how the printer had managed to get such a glossy coat. It was almost like running his finger through a thin sheen of oil. As his finger moved away, the card began to ripple and bubble like plastic when it burns. “What the hell?” Luke threw it to the floorboard of his truck and watched as it crinkled and turned black before dissolving into dust. Luke looked around as if he expected to see someone else watching the bizarre event. He checked his hands, but saw nothing. He did feel as though some residue remained on his skin. He worried his own flesh might start to burn. Seconds ticked by and nothing happened. He thoroughly wiped off his fingers and attributed the oily feeling on his fingertips to a psychological effect more than a physical one. Cursing to himself, he cranked the truck and started for home.

As he drove, he tried to remember the number, but that was a lost cause. But he could remember the name. Leo Polk. Some kind of magician maybe or a gag gift salesman. Luke thought he’d look him up once he got home. Everyone could be Googled, even strangers with disappearing cards.

Pucklebirch rolled by him as he drove. Luke didn’t know why people stayed. It wasn’t the typical type of dying post-industrial town that dotted America. Pucklebirch was a breed unto itself. The average age of a Pucklebirch citizen was forty-one. The older generation, those that were of Luke’s grandfather’s age, died off or moved away. The next generation thinned considerably in the years where layoffs plagued such communities. The ones who remained were like Luke’s parents, small business owners that did not fair any better or worse in the grander economy. They’d managed to retire and leave the house to their only son. Such action grew to be considered the civic duty of the people of Pucklebirch. Instead of the children leaving to make their way in the world, it was the parents who left, clearing space for Pucklebirch to be run by their children. No one had a perfect explanation for this phenomenon, but a huge factor had been the settlement.

Pucklebirch once hosted a chemicals plant. It was the primary employer for the region and bolstered the small economy for decades. When it closed, in yet another astounding feat of responsibility, the plant owners first dismantled the facility. During that process, they discovered a small contamination in the ground water. Lawsuits were filed, but the plant owners offered to settle immediately. They set up a trust with an incredibly generous payout to both the municipality and to the current citizens. As a result, Luke’s parents and Luke’s friends parents all entered retirement with a sizable check in the bank. The money received penalties for any form of transference, so the best thing for many to do was give their Pucklebirch home to their children and move away, using the money to buy a new life. Not all moved away, of course. Some couldn’t bear to leave their families and so they invested in something local. Some even worked out deals to buy their neighbor’s house, move into it and sell their old home to their children. The sum result, though, was that the city of Pucklebirch was unceremoniously moved from one generation to the next, whether the younger wanted it or not.

Luke liked it in Pucklebirch. The houses, mostly post-war construction, were quaint. Trees lined every road and grassy lawns surrounded almost every building. Luke knew the city like the back of his hand. As a boy, he rode his bike through the different small neighborhoods with his friends. As a teenager, he’d driven the back roads with a tangle of legs and wine spritzer beside him. As an adult, he commuted to and from the garden supply depot and drove around to the rental homes to make repairs or check in on people. Pucklebirch, even the name seemed to stick out like a sore thumb that no one could explain. In kindergarten, they taught him that it was the bastardization of a city in England - Pucklechurch - which supposedly meant beautiful church. Luke always wondered if it was an actual change of the name or if someone just saw a pretty tree and stopped to start a town. He always looked for birch trees when he was out in the woods. Never found one to be any prettier than an another.

He pulled into his driveway. Stepping out of the truck, he stamped his foot on the recently laid cement. He had no reason to believe the work crew hadn’t accounted for the heat, but with the summer temperatures rising daily, he made sure to keep an eye for cracks. Grabbing the beer from the passenger’s side, he looked down at the small pile of ash that had been Leo Polk’s card. It nagged at him. Something about that man had been off. Something about that card had seemed wrong even before it self-immolated. He lugged the beer into the house while mulling over a chemistry course he’d taken years before. It helped to know a little science when working in garden supply. While Luke rarely needed to know chemical equations, it did help to have a working knowledge of pH balance and the like. He racked the dark recesses of his memory for some kind of trick that would make paper burn up when someone touched it. Luke often chided himself for a wild imagination, but it was hard to suppress when a strange man handed him a card that subsequently combusted. And why did he have on gloves? By his truck thermometer, it was ninety-two degrees out. They weren’t work gloves, but leather ones like the pair Julie bought him for their skiing trip last year. The damn things had made his hands sweat when he was covered in snow. They’d be unbearable in the southern heat.

“Julie? I’m home!” He bellowed up the stairs. He put the beer on the counter and started to load it into the fridge. He paused after the fourth one to shove one in the ice tray. The soft thump of footsteps turned his attention to the stairs. It warmed him from top to bottom to see Julie dressed in one of his t-shirts, even after being together for six years. She was a petite woman with curly dark hair and big blue eyes. Unsurprisingly, Luke felt a twinge of desire for her as she walked over to him. Her breasts pushed out of his old shirt and it was only long enough to cover her to halfway down her thigh, giving Luke the chance to imagine that she had decided to greet him at the door with nothing on underneath. He’d imagined many times coming home to find her waiting for him, naked and horny. If that fantasy had come to fruition in that moment, Luke wouldn’t have known what to do. Julie could have pulled up the shirt to reveal her naked ass, bent over for him, and he would have been rooted to the spot with nothing but a gawking look on his face to comfort him.

She crossed into the kitchen, and he paused to give her a kiss. “Wow, you smell nice. What is that?”

“Huh? I should reek. Been out in the sun all day.”

Julie stayed closed to him, her arm gently wrapped around his stomach. She nuzzled into his neck and took a long sniff. “God, you smell like chocolate chip cookies or something.” Her cheeks reddened as she stepped back.

“I was in the Stop and Go. I think she bakes those cookies they have in the little display case sometimes. Maybe I picked up some of that.” He resumed putting away the beer.

“Maybe, how was your day?”

They lapsed into a conversation about the time they’d spent apart. Luke’s half was a benign account of helping a client work out a problem with their irrigation system. It involved finding some clogs in a pipe and a brief interlude with a family of moles. He omitted most of the mole problem as Julie was never fond of hearing about the brutality of nature’s interaction with machinery. While he talked, Julie checked the oven, and the smell of a store-bought meatloaf wafted out. Julie was never the best cook, but since she made an effort to have hot meals ready, at least, if only because she usually arrived home before Luke. She told him of her day. She worked as an office manager for a local emergency clinic. Since the intrigue of office management itself rarely thrilled, her stories often centered on the overly dramatic lives of her coworkers. She told him about Stacy’s newest boyfriend and how Tyler and Pam continued to have marital troubles. Luke nodded along while devoting most of his thought wondering how long the beer needed to stay in the ice before it would be cold enough to drink.

“Are you sure you didn’t put on any cologne or anything?” Julie asked as they sat down at the cluttered kitchen table. “I can’t get that smell out of my head.” She stuck her nose near the meatloaf and inhaled deeply. “Hell, even this smells like it. Maybe I’m having a stroke.”

“Never heard of anyone smelling cookies while having a stroke,” Luke humored her. “You know how it is. You get some little particles stuck in your nose, and you can smell it for days.” He took a swig of beer, the bitter lukewarm taste causing his mouth to water in compensation. He noticed Julie looked flush. She kept lingering her gaze on him, like she was some kind of infatuated school girl. “You don’t have a fever or nothing though?” The plate of meatloaf and gravy drew his attention. Deep in his gut, a coiling ache formed. He was starving. How had he not realized that before? He grabbed his fork and started to shovel the food into his mouth. He would swallow, and the fork would clatter back on the plate to scoop up anything in its path. The gravy dribbled down his lips, and he licked it off with his tongue while humming. Within seconds, his plate was clean.

“Jesus, Luke what the hell? Slow down.”

“Is there more?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He almost kicked the chair over as he stood up. In the kitchen, the other half of the pre-made meatloaf sat on the stove. He didn’t bother with a fork. His hands grabbed chunks of the meat and shoved it in his mouth, gobbling it down like a madman. Each mouthful only sated his hunger for seconds. He worried he would choke, but equally he worried he would starve if he didn’t eat. Julie stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching him. He could sense her fear and something else underneath it. What is that smell? The meat was gone, but the greasy gravy remained. Lifting the tray to his mouth, he drank the thick liquid in huge gulps.

“Luke, you’re scaring me!”

The hunger left. Luke put down the tray and staggered back. His belly felt as though it would explode. “No, I’m…ok. I was just, hungry.” Leo Polk. “Julie, don’t freak out, but listen. I saw a guy at the Stop and Go. He handed me a card. I think it may have had some kind of chemical on it.” Polonium. Smallpox. His head swirled and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. “I need to lie down.”

He staggered out of the kitchen and down the hall to their bedroom. Julie followed behind lobbing questions at him that went unanswered. “What man? A card? Did it say anything? Who was he? Did you get his name? Do you feel sick? Do I need to call an ambulance? For fuck’s sake, Luke, answer me!” Almost to the bed, he realized he was sweating buckets. He kicked off his shoes and let his shorts fall to his ankles, stepping out of them in stride. His shirt was soaked and even his boxers felt damp. He peeled off the shirt and threw it to the floor. Julie gasped. “Luke! The mirror!”

Finally snapped from his delirium, he followed her pointing finger to the wall length mirror beside the bedroom door. For the first part of his life, Luke had been a scrawny, tall thing. After his brief stint in college, he’d filled out. The subsequent years had put on some stringy muscle. But nothing like what he saw in the mirror. His chest had rounded into a burly chunk of muscle that narrowed into a pair of washboard abs that heaved up and down with his erratic breaths. His calves looked ready to snap from tension, and his thighs were thick enough to start splitting his boxers. But the thing that caught his eye and kept the startled gaze of his girlfriend was the obscene bulge crammed into the overstretched boxers. In disbelief that the man in the mirror was him, he moved his hand slowly up to the waistband of his boxers. His fingers hooked into the stretched elastic and pulled with more strength than he had expected. The cloth ripped and fell away. His cock flopped into view, sitting on top of a pair of swollen testicles the size of tennis balls. A sense of panic and dysphoria washed over Luke. With one last salient thought, he lurched toward the bed as he blacked out.

He felt something hit his face and heard a muffled voice. Luke’s eyes fluttered open to see Julie standing over him. “What happened?”

“You blacked out. I called Stacy, she’s on her way.” Julie sounded remarkably calm considering Luke’s own mind was rapidly plunging back into anxiety. “Luke, you’ve changed…” He felt her hand on him, and the rush of swelling that came with it. Julie sat on the bed beside him, her hand lingering at his crotch. “It’s so much bigger. And all these muscles. How is this even possible?”

“Did you tell Stacy what had happened?” Luke asked. He grabbed her hand and moved it away from his naked body as he sat up. His cock was half erect and already twice the size it should have been. His balls felt full and stuffed between his thighs. The rest of him seethed with newfound strength and dexterity. His heart had slowed down, but it still thumped at an elevated rate. As his arms moved, he could see the well defined muscle ripple and shift. His abs sunk inward as he sat up. All of the aches and pains he’d known and grown accustomed to were gone. His body felt new and young, as though he’d woke up in an eighteen year old body builder version of himself. There’s that smell again. Stronger now. Like vanilla.

“No. I told her you freaked out, ate a bunch of food, and then blacked out. She was on her way out of the clinic. She asked about your breathing and stuff. When you started to wake up, I told her that you were coming around and got off the phone, but she said she would stop by. Should take her thirty minutes or a little longer to get here.” Julie’s hands nervously rubbed her thighs as she talked. “Luke, you said something about a man before you passed out?”

“Leo Polk. I was going to look him up later tonight. He gave me a card after I gave him directions. Teresa saw him. The card sort of burned up while I was holding it. I thought it was weird, but look at me now.” He stood up and walked to the mirror. He felt more sure of himself than he ever had. The man in the mirror was a god, the perfect body he’d always dreamed of having but lacked the willpower to pursue. The muscles were one thing, but the cock was another. That was something he’d never imagined. The skin on his shaft had darkened considerably. Focusing on it made him start to swell once more. He pulled the shaft to the side, feeling its length in his hand, to inspect the changes fully. His balls were definitely bigger and the skin of his scrotum had become almost leathery, like a hide. He fondled his balls. They were not tender, but they did feel full. “Mumps? Doesn’t mumps make your balls swell up?”

“You were vaccinated. And mumps doesn’t change your whole body into this,” Julie said. Her eyes remained on his reflection, watching him play with his new cock. “You think you were poisoned?”

Luke turned to the side, his cock now fully erect. It stood out from his flat abs like a pulsing beacon. The head flared as he twitched his abdominal floor muscles. It sent a shiver of pleasure though his body. He started to realize that with his newly enhanced appendage came a quickly increasing desire for sex. He tried to ignore it. “I can’t think of anything else that would have done this. I was in a field all day, might have interacted with some chemicals there, but that card…I knew something was off the second I touched it — Julie, what are you doing?”

His girlfriend had pulled off her shirt and had her legs up in the air as she pulled off her underwear. “I can’t help it,” she whimpered. “My skin’s been crawling since this all started. I’m so horny, Luke. I’ve never felt it this bad before. It’s like I have this gnawing ache inside of me. My panties are soaked. You smell so good. Please, please fuck me.” She leaned back on the bed and spread her legs. Luke saw the glisten of her pussy as her lips spread. Her breasts wobbled on her chest as she looked over her tummy at him with pleading eyes.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said. Take her. Breed her. Fuck her till she cums. “Obviously, I have something wrong with me. What if it’s contagious?”

“Then I’ve already caught it!” Her voice was near manic with desperation. “C’mon, big guy. Let’s see if that new fat dick works.”

Luke could feel the urge to leap on her. It pushed at the back of his mind with animalistic fury. Julie was a petite girl, and he worried about hurting her. His cock was as big as her forearm now, but the sight of her pretty bald pussy was too inviting. When was the last time I saw her with the light on? When was the last time she spread her legs and showed me her pussy? Ever? Julie was no prude, but she had always been shy when it came to her pussy. She rarely let Luke go down on her and always covered up when the lights were on. She would tease him while standing up, letting him see the smooth skin above her pink lips, but never letting him look directly at it. Her behavior concerned him, but the churning feeling in his balls began to push his hesitations aside. “You sure I won’t hurt you?” he asked, stepping over to her and taking her ankles into his hands.

She wriggled her legs, pulling him towards her until his cock hovered above her stomach. Looking down, they both saw that his cock stretched past her navel. “It’ll fit, just go slow.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, resting on the newly improved gluts. Luke’s balls pushed against her wet lips. He could feel her heat. His thighs pushed against hers, shoving her further onto the bed as he climbed on top of her. He lowered his mouth to hers. They locked in a deep kiss as Luke’s hands moved down her thighs, up her hips, to reach her breasts and give them a hard squeeze. Their tongues lashed together, but it wasn’t enough for Julie. Her hips raised up in vain gyrations as Luke’s monster cock slid along the length of her pussy. “Put it in, please, I need it.”

“Oh fuck, wait, Stacy’s coming?”

“No, we can finish before she gets here,” Julie begged. “Fuck me, Luke.” Her hand reached down between them and took his cock in her hand. She’d held him many times before, but now her hand felt so small on him. Pushing his cockhead along the length of her slit, she mingled his precum with her juices before positioning him at her entrance. All of his hesitations vanished at the feeling of his cock nudging into her velvety folds. He pushed his hips down slowly, and his cock slipped inside of her. Both of them groaned. “More!” She pulled his head down to her shoulder and raised her own to bite at his shoulder and whisper in his ear, “More!”

Luke pushed in further. God, she’s so wet. And hot, and so fucking tight. His hands grabbed at her body wildly, desperate to find and hold any part of her. One arm wrapped around her and pulled her tight against him as he shoved another inch into her. She whimpered and moaned repeating her command of More. Luke could feel his balls tightening. He started to stroke in and out of her, going deeper each time. He expected her to scream or to stop him or to feel something inside of her that he shouldn’t, but the longer he was in her the more passionate she became. Luke pushed forward right as she raised her hips and he felt his wet balls slap against her ass as he bottomed out inside of her. Her pussy spasmed around him, squeezing his cock rhythmically as if to milk it. Julie’s whole body trembled with orgasm as he held her in his arms, his cock fully sheathed inside of her.

Seeing her cum so hard sent Luke over the edge as well. He felt a rush of fluid as the cum moved inside of him. It surged up the length of his cock, his muscles tensing and squeezing as the fluid rushed to the tip. He started to pull out, but Julie’s legs were wrapped around him tightly. Breed her. Cum erupted inside of her, spraying deep into her womb. Luke felt each pulse as it moved up his length and coated the inside of Julie’s pussy with thick cream. He roared and pushed his cock into her harder as his balls emptied into her. Wet squelches filled the room as she bucked and moaned while impaled on his cock, his cum starting to leak out around his plug-like dick.

Exhausted, he relaxed. Julie released him from her thighs. He pulled out of her and a rush fluids created a wet spot on the bed beneath her hips. Julie started to regain her senses as Luke rolled onto his back. He could still feel his cock lightly spasming. I’m still cumming, what the fuck? Globs of cum continued to ooze from the tip of his cock, each one sending a wave of pleasure through his body as it worked its way out. “I’m…hungry,” Julie murmured. In a flash, she was up on her hands and knees. Her breasts dangled over his body as she positioned her mouth over his cock. Before he could object, she had taken his dick into her mouth and started to suck down the globs of cum while moaning in satisfaction. Luke had no choice but to lean back and enjoy it. Reclining, he was able to get a better look at Julie’s body. She looks different. Are her tits bigger? She pulled her mouth off of his cock and pumped it harder. “You need to cum again,” she insisted. Her mouth swirled around his cock once more, her tongue slithered along the underside of his dick and up to tease the head. Despite having cum moments before and still cumming in small waves, Luke could feel a new orgasm building.

Julie doubled her efforts. She couldn’t get much of her mouth down the massive shaft, but she made up for it in enthusiasm. She moved around to squat between his legs. Rubbing his cock on her tits, “Don’t you want to cum again? I want to swallow your cum. I’ve already got so much of it in my pussy and now I want a hot load in my belly.” Her mouth opened slowly as she let his cock push against her cheek. Luke couldn’t hold back. Another wave of cum rushed out of his cock, splashing on her cheek before she could get it in her mouth. He grabbed handfuls of the bedsheets and pulled as he watched Julie gulp down his cum while more of it dribbled from her chin. As he finished she pulled off of him with a satisfied, “Ahh!” Looking down, she scooped up some cum that had landed on her breast and brought it to her mouth. “Mmmm…you taste so good. I could drink your cum all day.”

Luke didn’t answer. He struggled to understand what he was watching. Julie’s breasts swelled. Her nipples grew bigger and darker in just seconds. She’d gone from small handfuls to C cups and they kept changing. “Julie? Do you feel ok?”

“I feel amazing. I’m just….so hungry.”

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