The Syrup Swap
A quick first-person story written because a buddy suggested a writing prompt for me. Oops, you're a moose now.
Nothing beats pancakes on a cold winter morning, and I was ready to dig in. Gingerly tipping my skillet, I slid the last flapjack onto my stack of pancakes, a warm, battery scented steam rising from my plate. I cut a couple small chunks of butter off the stick and tossed them on top, watching for just a moment as they began to melt into golden drops that slowly sank into the warm surface of my pancakes.
Turning towards the cupboard, I went to get the maple syrup that would complete my breakfast. Pulling the doors open, I glanced across the shelves looking to find the jug. Oddly, it didn't seem to be where it usually went.
"Hey Jared?" I called to my roommate, "Did you move my maple syrup?"
I heard a shuffling and a door cracking open. "O-oh. I used up the rest, but there's a new one in there," Jared's voice came from the hallway. "Bought it special, it's supposed to help you gain bulk or something. Top shelf."
Glancing upward, I caught sight of an unfamiliar bottle on the top shelf, in the corner. Reaching up, I could barely manage to take it down, and it nearly fell on my face.
"Found it?" Jared asked.
"Y-yeah," I said, reading the label. "Moose brand Maple Syrup?"
"That's the stuff," he replied before the sound of his door closing punctuated the end of our conversation.
It was a small bottle than I usually got, and aside from the label with the large, dopey looking moose on it, there was no other marking. I shrugged, and twisted the lid off. Tipping the bottle, the golden liquid inside began to spill out over my buttery pancakes. It drizzled a bit faster than I was expecting, seemingly quickened by the heat in the room. The maple scent spread through the air, the heady sweetness filling my nose, mingling with the butter and scent of eggy pancakes. My mouth watered, I couldn't wait to dig in.
I hurried over to the table, grabbing a fork from the drawer and the knife with small clumps of butter still clinging to it, and plunked my plate down next to my big glass of milk. The teak chair creaked a bit in protest as I settled into it. A quick glance at the clock told me that I still had an hour and a half to burn before the gym opened for the morning, plenty of time for me to digest the four flapjacks glistening with butter and syrup. I cut into the stack, taking a large hunk off and crammed it into my mouth. The chewy, fluffy texture of the pancake mingling with the light butter and the gloriously sweet maple drizzled over them. It was like heaven on a fork, and I allowed myself to savour the first couple bites.
The door in the hallway clunked open, and Jared came into the kitchen, sporting his pyjama bottoms and a black tank top. "Hey, you made your pancakes again?"
I tried to speak around my third forkful of pancake, but all I managed was a muffled "Myush," before nodding.
He didn't seem to respond, but I thought I caught a glance of an unusually satisfied smirk on his face before he disappeared behind the fridge door.
I continued chopping big chunks of pancake as Jared started making his own breakfast, today was a bowl of oatmeal with raisins and diced apple from a large pre-made batch. He scooped a bit out and slopped it into a bowl which he popped into the microwave.
"Off to the gym again?" he asked, idly glancing at the clock.
I nodded and swallowed my last bite. "Yeah, wanna get there before someone else takes my free weights."
He nodded. "So how's that program working out for you?"
I raised an arm, pulling my shirt sleeve up a bit and flexed. "How's it look?"
Jared nodded. "Looks like you're putting on some muscle. That's cool."
The microwave beeped, and he turned to retrieve his breakfast as I slammed the last of my milk. "Alright, I'm out. Be back to shower and stuff before work." I placed the dishes in the sink before heading to the door.
I heard him grunt by way of acknowledgement. "By the way, how was that syrup?"
"Not bad," I said as I grabbed my gym bag off the coat rack. "Seemed like it was watered down a bit though? Okay, later!"
I thought I heard him chuckling as the door slammed closed.
The gym had just opened by the time I arrived. It was only a few blocks away, so I walked up there, except on leg days. My strategy of going early in the morning was paying off so far - most of the people that came at that time were only interested in grinding out a half hour or so on the treadmills or stair machines, while I was interested in the weights. I'd started a program a month ago, three days a week, to try and get big for summer. I scanned my pass at the front and breezed into the change rooms, finding an unclaimed locker and swapping my sweat pants for my gym shorts. I shut the door of the locker and headed out.
There were two people already on the treadmills as I left the locker room and made my way downstairs to where the weight machines and free weights were. I breathed a sigh of relief to find that it was empty, save for myself. Grinning, I tightened my grip on my shaker bottle, filled with a protein powder concoction I'd learned to live with for the sake of gains. I jumped into my warmup stretches, mentally reiterating the routine I was going to do.
Stretches done, I straightened and walked over to the dumbbell rack, reaching to pull off some lighter weights to do my warmup set. I pulled, and the weights nearly leaped upwards, feeling weirdly lighter than usual. Glancing down, they were indeed my usual 15 pound warmup weight, so I shrugged and grabbed the 20s instead. I began to do my sets, focusing on my shoulders, remembering my form. Before long, I was done and began my work sets, jumping up to some heavier 40s. This time, I ran into some resistance in the first couple reps, but after that I got into it and really began pushing.
My heart was pounding, blood racing as I dropped my arms, allowing the weights to drop from the bench to the rubber pads on the floor. I glanced up at my reflection in the mirror, grinning as I felt my shoulders strain against the tight workout tee I wore. Breathing deeply, I pulled the weights up off the floor and heaved them back onto the rack, standing nearly face to face with my reflection in the wall-length mirror.
I noticed an odd tuft of hair poking out from my right shirt sleeve that I hadn't a moment ago. Straightening, I hiked the cuff of my tee up, over my shoulder. My breath caught.
There was a weird patch of tawny hair there, starting at the top of my deltoid and running in a blobby band down to the edge of my shirt. I stared at it a second, my shoulder twitching, tugging the skin and the hair patch as it moved. My fingers gently brushed at it, feeling coarse, dense fur.
"What the... hell?" I muttered.
Curious now, I pulled up my other sleeve and was greeted with a similar patch there.
I felt a weird spinning sensation, and clapped my hands to my face, waiting for it to pass. The heat of my pumped shoulders seemed to spread down my arms and up into my chest and back as the sensation intensified for a moment before fading.
My reflection gazed back at me, frowning. That hadn't happened before, and it was certainly disconcerting. I breathed deeply, trying to even out my heartbeat and glanced up at the clock. I'd only been there ten minutes, more or less on schedule. My heart was still thumping like mad, the heat in my body seemingly building. The shirt suddenly seemed to be tight across my chest and the cuffs of my sleeves feeling like they were starting to dig into my skin.
I pulled at my shirt, pulling it up and off my body, the chill of the air in the gym giving me a bit of goosebumps on my back. It tugged on my shoulders as it came off, and I finally got a good look at myself.
My chest was pumped up, matching my shoulders as it seemed to bulge under my skin, slightly too tight. It... seemed weird, but I liked it. I really liked it.
A pain seized my chest and I lurched forward, nearly smacking my head on the free weights. I hunched there for a bit as the feeling passed, before straightening again.
I was fairly hairy to begin with, but it looked like it was spreading... My shoulder fuzz had spread across the sweep of my collarbone, and craning my neck, I could see it spread across my shoulder blades. The heat returned again, spreading farther up my neck and down my torso.
It was then that my spine started popping, crackling like a bag of popcorn. It didn't really hurt, but I seemed to grow upwards as my skin began to prickle where the weird fur was growing. The heat began spreading down my arms and back...
I grunted as my ribcage crunched, barreling outwards as the fur spread down my front. My skin seemed to ripple as my belly bulge seemed to melt away, swelling with muscle and a toned six pack. I sucked a breath between my teeth as the wave of heat engulfed me completely.
Pressure exploded in my face and lower spine, and my nose seemed to bulge outward before my eyes. The tawny fur spread over me like a wave, my muscles twitching and throbbing in the delicious heat. I felt my shorts tent back as something pressed its way out between the top of my butt cheeks. It wasn't long before something else started tenting up my shorts, this time in the front. I was... getting off on this, the feeling of growing, my muscles bulging. I was popping a boner in the gym! It throbbed in my groin as the heat spread into it, and I felt my dick slip down the leg of my boxer. I wasn't normally that long...
I grunted as my legs gave out and I fell to the floor. The heat spread into my legs, down to my feet.
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, through the legs of the dumbbell racks, and I realized I had to get out of there before someone else came in...
Grabbing onto the nearby bench, I pushed myself up, legs feeling weak like I'd just done hundreds of squats. It wasn't far to the stairs, and I managed to get over there by using other equipment to prop myself up occasionally. I made it to the base of the stairs, right as another cramp hit me in the gut. Falling, I twisted to avoid clunking my head on the stairs. I had to pull myself up, one stair at a time until I was eye level with the floor above. There were a few more patrons running on their treadmills. I glanced around, and found an emergency exit, just a few paces away from the top of the stairs.
I pulled myself up at the last step, legs still feeling weak. Three paces, and I could escape.
One step, and I could feel a strange pressure in my teeth.
Second step. Third-
Something cramped in my calf and I stumbled.
As I fell forward, I managed to get my hand on the release, my momentum throwing the door open. A blast of cold air greeted me as I fell out into the early morning air. I pulled my legs through, the metal only briefly touching my ankles before the door clunked shut behind. I sat there on the pavement for only a moment before bolting as fast as I could around the back of the building to where my car was. My feet cramped, suddenly constrained in my trainers. Stumbling onto the soft ground, I felt a growing pain and sudden relief as a strange tearing sound filled my ears. I rolled onto my back and saw one shoe completely in shreds as my foot sprouted outwards, my toes shifting as my nails darkened, twisting outwards into hooves. A second later, my other foot exploded from my other shoe, this time tearing the back of it off. I grunted, a tingling feeling spreading up from my new hooves. I tried kicking my feet to free myself from the remnants of my shoes, the left one flicking off into the bushes, but the right one remained stuck around my shifting ankle.
I pulled myself up again, wobbling and leaning on the back of the building for support as I tried to balance on my cervine feet. As I stood there, slowly stretching my gym shorts with my expanding waist I felt a sharp blast of cold on my dick. Looking down, I saw the tip of it extending past my shorts. Tentatively, I reached down to touch it when I noticed the nails on my hands darkening, my hands expanding, becoming thicker, stronger. I waited for my nails to start turning into hooves as well, but they seemed to stop and only a tingling sensation prickling in my hands.
Another explosion of white-hot pressure racked my head, the pain shooting down my back and neck as I felt my skin tear above my ears. The pressure blasted outwards and I felt my ears pop as it did. Bringing my free hand up to my face, I felt my fingers brush against my ear well lower than it should have. I paused, feeling for the weird tingling flesh of my ear and found it, again, much lower than I expected. Pulling it forward a bit, I caught the end of a pointy, brown-furred tip in my peripheral vision.
What the fuck was happening to me... and why... did it feel so good?
The waistband of my shorts and boxers finally gave out, and with a succession of slow pops, the seams burst. The fabric fluttered to the ground, finally exposing my cock to the morning air. I gasped as I saw how big I'd become, my girth firmly rooted to my crotch in a tuft of light cream coloured fur. Free from their textile containment, I felt my orbs sag, noticing their weight settle between my burning thighs. My balls were covered in the same cream fur, contrasting the darker tawny fuzz that had spread around my legs as they tingled, pins and needles erupting down my calves and shins as well.
My neck muscles twitched and burned, and I turned my head, abruptly banging something that tugged on my head oddly, causing the tree I was leaning on to vibrate slightly. I reached up to find a pair of what I imagined had to be antlers sticking out of my head.
This was insane... what was I becoming? I had to find something to see my reflection in. I looked up and could see the telltale signs of dawn.
The sun was starting to rise, I wouldn't have much darkness left to make it home in. I had no choice but to learn to walk on my new feet, and quickly if I wanted to have any chance of avoiding being seen.
I pushed the back door open, using the spare key we kept under the porch to let myself in, the first time clanking against the doorframe with my antlers. I had to turn my head sideways before I could get in, my new bulk almost not fitting through. I shut the door behind me, and breathed a sigh of relief. I hadn't seen anyone on my quick trip home, so all that was left to deal with was Jared, and he would have already left for work by now. I had the day to myself to try and figure out-
"I see you're back early," a gruff voice called out.
My heart leaped into my throat and I froze there.
"Mmmm, and you're looking goo-ood!" The voice came from a large figure in the darkened hallway. The shadow shifted and moved forward, and I could pick out the outline of a large, burly figure there.
"W-who are you?"
"Oh come on man, you don't recognize your own roommate?"
That wasn't Jared's voice... though as I listened, the tone, the inflections were the same...
"Of course, I've had some changes of my own," he said, flicking the light on.
He was big, thickly muscled and had the same tank top Jared had been wearing this morning, naked from the waist down... and covered in grey and white fur. He turned around slowly, my eyes locked on him, as he did. I hardly noticed the words printed on the back of the tank as my eyes slid to his firm butt, partly concealed by a large, bushy wolf tail, and the hint of a heavy sack beyond.
"Heh, looks like you like what you see," he murmured.
I grunted weakly as I felt my dick spring from my new sheath. "F-fuck... w-what did you... do to us?"
He grinned at me, a toothy grin and ran his long canine tongue over his pointed teeth. "I thought it was time for some fun," he said, stepping towards me, resting a hand on my shoulder. "So strong," he murmured, placing his other hand over my big pec and squeezed.
My pulse quickened, and I couldn't help but get harder. I wanted... I needed to fuck him.
"C'mon, big buck. I think it's time we got you in the rut, hm?"
"Fuck yeah," I said, pulling him up to me and finally locking lips with him.