AgeArts 3D Comics

Here’s a new commissioned story for an anonymous fan. It starts off as an AR story in this chapter, but it could become just about anything as it goes on. Thank you again, anonymous, for the commission! (For info on my commissions follow this link.)

Stephen was touching himself.

He had an excellent new piece of age regression porn displayed on his monitor, and he was already deep into a fantasy with it. He could picture himself in the scenario, and it was exactly to his tastes. Soon he would reach for the tissues.

And, right at that moment of near ecstasy, there was a knock on his bedroom door. Before he could respond, the door swung open.

“Stephen,” his sister said as she barged into his room, uninvited. “Dinner’s ready. Mom wanted me to tell… Ugh, what the hell are you doing?”

“Niki! Get out!” he cried as he fumbled to cover himself up and shut off his computer monitor at the same time.

“Oh… Kay,” she said and awkwardly walked away, leaving him alone with his shame.

He sighed as his racing heart calmed down. “Damn it,” he said.

She had seen him. She must have seen what he was doing. Worse than that, she must have seen what was on the monitor. “Why can’t she knock on a door like a normal person?” he cried. Now, he would have to deal with her. He worried what she might do next. Would she assume something awful about him because of it? Would she tell mom?

He saved the file in his secret folder and closed down his browser. Then, he opened it again to make sure he had cleared his browsing history as well.

Again, he sighed. How the hell would he explain this to her? He knew how perverted his fantasies seemed, but he had come to terms with that side of himself. Still, it was clear that other people would not understand. It wasn’t like he was hurting anybody. Nothing he was doing was illegal or particularly immoral. It was all a bit of harmless fantasy.

In his fantasies, he dreamed about being young again, not the nearly 19-year-old man he was now. He imagined what it would feel like to be small again, to be a boy or a baby even, to be fresh and full of energy, to be cared for, to be free of responsibilities. He wanted to wear diapers again. He wanted to feel the wonder of discovering his sexuality again. How carefree he had been. How joyful. And yet, he knew that golden time of his life was never going to return. Sure, he could relive his youth in his fantasies again and again, but there was always a sense of disappointment to it. Even the most satisfying fantasies would never quite live up to the real experience of childhood.

He wondered if anyone else could sympathize with that sense of futility, that realization that your deepest desire was forever beyond your reach no matter how much you wanted to touch it. All he could hope for was a rough approximation of the feeling, while the true thing would be forever lost in the past.

Even worse, beyond that futility was the feeling of shame. That sense that there was something slightly wrong about him that he had to keep hidden from everyone, fearing how they might judge him. It was maddening and terrifying, and now his worst fear had come true. Someone else knew.

And, of all people, Niki was the last person he wanted to know about it.

“Fuck!” he said and zipped up his pants. Then, he turned off his monitor and headed down to dinner.

***

“Hello, Stephen,” his mother said as he entered the dining room. “Go grab yourself some spaghetti.”

Steven saw his sister eating at the dining room table. Their eyes met for a moment, and then she gave him a slight smirk. Any doubts he had about her seeing what he had been doing were gone. She definitely knew.

Damn it.

Steven went into the kitchen. As his mother helped him fill his plate, he wondered what he could do to keep his sister quiet about what she had seen. Maybe she would just blackmail him later, he hoped.

He returned to the dining room and took his seat at the table. As he began eating his food, he kept repeatedly glancing at his sister, wondering what she would say. For a tense moment while they were alone, he considered whispering something to her, but he could not think of the right thing to say.

Then, their mother came in and joined them at the table with her plate of spaghetti, prompting his sister to say, “Mom, you promised. No lab coats at the table.”

“Oh,” she said, looking down at the white lab coat she was still wearing. “Forgot I had it on.”

She stood up and took her coat off, revealing a modest green shirt and a pair of dark pants. Although it had been years since she had done research in an actual lab, she still dressed the part in her private basement lab, and she would have dressed that way everywhere if her kids had not demanded some separation between her work life and home life, even if the two lives overlapped under one roof.

“So,” their mother said as she returned to her seat in the proper attire. “How’s the food?”

“Delicious,” Niki said. “Thank you.”

“It’s great,” Stephen said. “Thanks.”

“Good,” their mother said. “So, what are the two of you up to tonight?”

“I’m going out,” his sister said.

“With whom?” their mother asked.

“Just some friends,” Niki said and took a bite of her dinner to avoid saying any more.

Stephen noticed his sister’s outfit. She was wearing a white spaghetti strap crop top with a gray, loose knit, button up sweater draped over it. Additionally, she had on a bit too much makeup and had clearly spent some time arranging her blonde hair in a fashionable bun. She was showing off her newly 18-year-old body, revealing little peeks of skin everywhere but trying to be subtle about it.

Although their mother was pretty oblivious about Niki’s social life, it was clear to Stephen that Niki had a date, which was pretty normal for her. Being as pretty as she was meant that she had no problems finding dates.

“How about you, Stephen?” their mother asked.

“Oh,” he said, wincing a little as he considered his own lack of a social life. “I don’t have any plans. Just staying in. Playing some games on my computer.”

“Stephen just loves being alone and playing with himself,” Niki said.

Stephen gave her a look and then glanced worriedly at their mother who seemed to have missed Niki’s meaning.

“And, how are you doing on the job hunt?” their mother asked.

“Still looking,” Stephen lied.

“Have you reconsidered signing up for classes this fall?” she asked.

“Maybe,” he said, but the idea of going to community college was only slightly less annoying than getting a job. “I’ll look into it.”

His mother sighed and set down her fork. “I’m worried about you,” she said. “It’s been over a year now since you graduated. I was willing to accept that you wanted to have a gap year after high school, but you need to do something with your life.”

Stephen had no good reply.

Niki explained, “Stephen just wants to keep living like a kid. I mean, he still sleeps in the same bed he’s had since grade school. He hates the idea of being an adult.”

Stephen wanted to argue, but he had to admit to himself that she was right about him.

“Seriously,” she continued. “I bet he’d still be in diapers if he could be.”

And, that was it. She had said it out loud. That was what she had seen him looking at, a diaper fantasy. She had called him out, which was devastating, but at the same time, she had avoided giving away the whole truth. She had said nothing about porn. They would need to have a talk later, he decided. It seemed as if she were playing a game with him, and he would need to find out what the rules were.

“Nicole,” their mother said. “Be nice.”

“Sorry,” Niki said. “I’m just telling it like I see it.”

Stephen was desperate to change the subject. “I’m going to be fine,” he said. “I’ll get a job soon. Don’t worry about me.”

“Stephen,” their mother said. “I’m not trying to pressure you. I just…”

“It’s fine. I know you’re just asking because you care. I get it. I’ll start working on adulthood stuff. Don’t worry.”

“Well,” she said. “That’s a relief. You let me know if you need any help.”

“Sure,” he said. “If I ever catch you out of your lab, I’ll be sure to get your help.”

She sighed. “I know I’ve been busy with my work lately. You should understand, though, that I’m close to a big breakthrough.”

“Another breakthrough,” he said with more than a trace of annoyance in his voice. “Didn’t the last one already make you rich?”

“It did,” she said.

That was an understatement. His mother had managed to engineer a brain-computer neural interface that would allow a computer to read a person’s thoughts. That would have been an incredible achievement by itself. What was even more incredible about it, though, was that it worked by only touching a person’s skin. She had quickly patented her invention, and all the big tech companies had raced to sell her technology to the world. After that, the money had flowed in like a river. Many people would have taken that success as an excuse to live a life of leisure as a wealthy inventor. Not their mother, though. She had used her fortune as a way to fund further research, moving her work into the basement of their house for secrecy’s sake. Instead of new cars and big mansions, she had invested in lab equipment and electronics. For the past couple of years, she had worked in relative silence on some new project that she had revealed to no one, not even her own children.

“What is this big breakthrough?” Stephen asked.

“Well,” she said, with a faint smile. “I’ll give you a hint, I suppose. Do you notice anything different about me?”

Niki and Stephen stared at her for a few seconds.

“New haircut?” Niki guessed.

“No,” their mother said. “Try again.”

Stephen looked carefully but saw nothing different about her. He shook his head. “I have no idea,” he said. “I give up.”

Her smile faded. “You didn’t notice my glasses?” she asked as she adjusted them on her nose.

“Those old red ones?” Niki asked. “What about them?”

“What?” their mother said. “‘Old?’ What do you mean?”

“You wear those all the time,” Stephen said.

“But, I’ve never…” she stumbled to say. “I mean, they weren’t…” Then, a look of realization appeared on her face. “You really don’t know what happened. That’s interesting… very interesting. Hmm…” She stood up from the table, grabbed her lab coat, and walked down into her basement lab without excusing herself, leaving her half-eaten dinner behind to go cold.

Neither of her children bothered to say anything in response. This was actually pretty standard for a dinner with her. At some point, an idea might occur to her. Then, without another word, she would wander off to explore it in her lab, leaving her family or dinner guests behind to wonder what was going on in her head.

“There she goes again,” Niki said as she finished her dinner. “Off to make another fortune.”

Now that they were alone, Stephen decided that this was a good time for a serious talk with her. “Please don’t tell her,” he said. There was no point in threatening her, he realized. Maybe she would take pity on him.

“Tell her what?” she asked, playing dumb.

“You know what.”

“Oh,” she said. “You mean about what you were doing in your room. I don’t think that would surprise her much. I’m sure she’s aware that you’ve never had a girlfriend.”

He sighed. It was clear that Niki was going to make this painful. “I mean it,” he said. “It’s just a harmless fantasy. No one has to know about it. Okay?”

“If it’s so harmless, then why are you so worried about people knowing?”

“What do you want?” he asked, getting to the point.

“Nothing right now,” she said. “But, I might need something from you later, a favor maybe. I’ll keep quiet about your kinky fantasies for now, but I won’t forget about them.”

Stephen nodded. That was probably the best he could hope for from Niki, just a silent bit of blackmail. “Well, thanks for that at least,” he said.

“Just make sure you keep yourself out of trouble,” she said. “It would really suck for Mom and me if the police knocked down the door because of something dirty you downloaded on your computer. Okay?”

“You don’t need to worry about…”

A car horn honked from outside.

“That’s my date,” she said. “He’s really cute. I’m probably going to be out really late tonight with him. And, if you want me to keep quiet about what I saw tonight, you won’t say a word to Mom about him or any other guy I go out with… ever. Understand?”

He nodded.

She stood up, and Steven got a good look at her fashionably ripped jean shorts and low-top canvas shoes as she walked to the door. “Bye, bye!” she said with a wave. “Have fun with yourself tonight. We’ll talk more about our arrangement tomorrow.” Then, she was out the door to join her date.

Stephen sat there alone for a minute before finishing his meal and then cleaning up for the two women who had just walked out on him.

***

Stephen went to bed that night, feeling acutely alone. He considered revisiting his fantasies from earlier in the night. Instead, he lay in bed, trying to remember when he had first taken an interest in age regression. He was asleep before he could find the memory.

The next morning on his way to the bathroom, he paused in front of his sister’s half-open door and peeked inside of her room. He found her sleeping face down on her bed, still fully dressed, leaving him to wonder just how late she had come home to be too tired to even take off her shoes. He left her there to rest, used the bathroom, and headed off to make some breakfast.

There was no sign of his mother in her bedroom or downstairs when he went to the kitchen to make a PB and J sandwich. Either she was in her lab already, or, like his sister, she may have stayed up late. Although Stephen had not seen the basement for years now, he believed that she had set up a cot down there for sleeping, since there were nights when he was sure that she never emerged from the basement at all. He suspected that last night had been one of those all-nighters for her.

As he finished making his sandwich, Stephen began to wonder how his life had become so comparatively boring. His sister was out having a wild time most nights, while his mother was working on some cutting edge science experiment in the basement. Meanwhile, he was on his computer looking up perverted porn. To each their own.

He poured himself a glass of milk and added chocolate syrup to it with no shame. It was one more little bit of childhood he refused to give up. After all, why should anyone drink plain milk when chocolate milk is an option? Then, he settled in to the living room sofa, put some cartoon on the TV, and ate his breakfast.

Following his breakfast, he decided the morning was hot enough to justify having some dessert. He checked in the freezer and found a box of Fudgsicles. Just when he had unwrapped one and began to eat it, he heard the sound of a loud crash coming from the basement as if many things had fallen over at once.

“Stephen! Nichole!” his mother cried from downstairs. “Someone help me! I’m stuck!”

Stephen headed for the basement, pausing just a moment at the “Keep Out” sign before opening the door to his mother’s secret lab. Then, he raced down the steps to help her.

“Mom?” he called to her when he entered the basement. Since he had last seen the room, it had become a maze of shelves holding electrical equipment. There was no sign of her among the machinery.

“Over here!” she yelled from one corner.

Stephen made his way towards her voice, stepping over wires and sidling around shelves until he reached her. She was trapped under a pile of boxes, which appeared to have fallen from a shelf and landed on top of her. Stephen set down his Fudgsicle, and started moving boxes off of her.

When he moved the last box, she grunted and said, “Oh, thank you. I was just trying to reach something on the top shelf when everything tipped over on me.”

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “I think I’m just a little bruised. Otherwise, I’m fine.”

Stephen offered her his hand. She took it in hers, and he helped her stand up again.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes,” she said. “I might need to sit down for a minute, though.”

Stephen followed her over to a bank of computer monitors that were situated at the center of all the machines and wires. Next to the monitors was a larger machine that looked like a furnace, but with more wires and lights attached to it. In front of the large machine was something he recognized, a small platform with one of his mother’s patented mind-reading touch pads set flat on top of it. The pad was just high enough and large enough for a person to rest a whole hand spread out on it.

His mother sat down on her computer chair and checked her elbow to see if it was bleeding. “Looks like I don’t even need a bandage,” she said.

“Good,” he said.

“Oh,” she said and frowned.

“What? Is something wrong?”

“Your Fudgsicle.” She pointed at the floor.

“Oh,” he said and went to pick up his dessert treat. It had begun to melt on the floor, and when he retrieved it, it continued to drip. “I’ll clean it up. Do you have any paper towels down here?”

She smiled, which made Stephen nervous. It was one of those eureka smiles that came when she had a bright idea. “I have a better idea,” she said. “What if I could make it so that it had never started to melt at all?”

“Eh?” he said. “What do you mean?”

“Come here,” she said as she started typing something on her keyboard. “Bring the Fudgsicle.”

“Okay?” he said when he was standing next to her. “What’s going to happen now?”

“Watch!” she said. She flipped a switch and machines all over the room hummed to life. The whole lab buzzed with energy like a robotic beehive. Then, she walked over to the touch pad, and paused a moment before touching it. “You prefer ice cream bars to Fudgsicles don’t you?”

“Um, yeah?”

She smiled and said, “Come stand next to me.”

He stepped closer to her.

“Watch this,” she said and placed her hand on the touch pad. Then, she closed her eyes and appeared to concentrate on something.

The computer beeped, and the large machine in front of them whirred to life, and a glow emanated from it that blinded Stephen for a moment, sending a tingling sensation through his whole body. Then, the sound in the room faded away until there was nothing but the regular background whir of cooling fans.

Stephen blinked. “What was that?” he asked.

His mother turned and pointed at the dessert he was holding. “Look,” she said, proudly.

Stephen was now holding an uneaten ice cream bar where he had been holding a melting Fudgsicle only a moment ago. The dessert had never left his hand, but it had been replaced with a new one somehow.

“Now,” she said. “Here’s the big question: do you notice anything different about your dessert?”

“It’s not a Fudgsicle anymore?” he said, stating the obvious.

“Yes!” she said. “You noticed it this time. Oh, it has to be proximity to the event that determines the machine’s affect on a person’s memories. That is so interesting. I wonder what the reason is for that. I certainly didn’t expect it to work that way. Still, how fascinating!”

Stephen felt like his mother had left him behind in the conversation. It was a habit of hers to keep talking without bothering to explain anything to the people listening. She just kept on thinking out loud to herself without any regard for the people around her. “What do you mean about affecting memories? What happened just now with the machine?”

She paused a moment and looked at him as if she had forgotten he was there. Then, she looked uncertain about what to do. “Well,” she said. “I don’t know if I should tell you about it or not. I suppose, since you were just a test subject for the experiment, it would only be fair to explain what the experiment was, but you have to promise not to share what I tell you with anyone, not even Niki. Do you promise?”

“Uh, sure,” he said. “I promise to keep it a secret.”

“Good,” she said. “Now, where to begin? Oh, you might want to eat that before it melts.”

Stephen looked down at the ice cream bar and said, “Is it safe?”

“Yes, of course it is… I mean, it should be.”

Stephen took a small bite. It tasted like an ordinary ice cream bar. “It’s not bad,” he said.

“It should be like any other ice cream bar that you’ve had before because it is,” she said.

“But,” he said. “How did it change?”

“Actually it didn’t. It was the world that changed, or, at least, some parts of it. Are you aware of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics?”

“Is that, like, parallel universes or something?”

“No,” she said. “Well, kind of. It’s more complicated than that. Basically, the idea behind it is that there are many worlds or realities, maybe even infinite realities, and in those realities everything that could have happened in the past has happened in one or more of those other realities. With every choice, every chance occurrence, new realities are created.”

“That sounds like parallel universes to me.”

“Fine, you can call it that if that helps. Now, here’s how this idea connects to my experiment. I realized that if those other realities did in fact exist, then there should be a way to interact with them somehow, to communicate between the worlds. My first attempts at it led to the discovery of the mind reading technology. If I could have a machine communicate with a human consciousness and the complex forms within it, then it was only another leap to make that same communication bridge between two worlds.”

“So, how does that change my dessert?”

“Imagine me at the store buying ice cream. I see the Fudgsicles box and the ice cream bars box. I choose to buy the Fudgsicles in this world. At the same moment, a new world has been created in which I choose to buy the ice cream bars instead. Time passes, and this morning comes. You pick up a Fudgsicle in this world, while another you in the other world picks up an ice cream bar. Then, you both come down to the basement. I turn on my machine, I press my hand to the mind-reading plate, and I think that I want you to have an ice cream bar instead of a Fugsicle. The machine pulls the ice cream bar from the other world into this one. In fact, it collapses the two worlds together so that this new world includes the ice cream bar and no longer includes the Fudgsicle.”

“So, you just… changed reality… with your mind?”

“Sort of,” she said. “Mainly I adjusted the quantum states of two realities so that they were combined together again. Here’s the thing, though. Not only has the present changed, so has the past as well. If you go upstairs, you’ll find there’s a box of ice cream bars in the freezer now. If you ask Niki about them, she will only remember the history that includes the ice cream bars.”

“But, I don’t remember there being ice cream bars.”

“Yes, and neither do I. That was what was so surprising to me last night when you mentioned that the rims of my glasses have always been red.”

“Well, they have always been red.”

She shook her head. “No, they used to be black. I used the machine to change them from black to red. I pulled in another reality in which I had always worn red glasses instead. Your memories are from that reality.”

“Whoa,” he said. “This is kinda freaking me out a little. So, why did I notice the change this time and not the time before with your glasses?”

“It has to be due to your proximity to the machine. I’m not sure what the exact reason for it is, but it seems that being closer to the machine allows you to retain memories of the previous reality that existed before the machine collapsed the realities together. If you are too far from the machine, then your memories change along with the rest of reality.”

“So, let me see if I understand,” Stephen said, rubbing his head. “You built a machine that can transform reality by changing the past and present at the same time. The only people who will notice the changes are the ones who are standing closest to the machine. Am I right?”

“Well, pretty much. That’s an oversimplification, but yes.”

“How does it even work?”

“Well, it takes a lot of energy. Look around you. Most of the room is full of capacitor banks, basically batteries that store energy over time and then release it all really quickly. With enough energy stored up and released at once, I can bridge the two realities together using the quantum manipulator in the machine over there,” she said, indicating the large machine that had flashed at them. “Once the machine is activated, all I need to do is put my hand on the mind-reading plate, and the machine automatically tries to change reality to fit my thoughts.”

“It’s a wishing machine,” he said, his mind racing with possibilities.

“What?” she said. “No. It’s not magic. It’s science.”

“But, you just said that you wish for things, and the machine makes them true. Isn’t that a wishing machine?”

“Well…” she started to speak but apparently could not find a way to respond. “Huh,” she said after realizing he may be right.

The doorbell rang upstairs.

“Oh!” she said as if she had just remembered something. “I was expecting a delivery today. That’s probably it.” She stood up and headed out of the basement and up the stairs. Just before she was out of sight, she said, “Oh, don’t touch anything down here. It could be dangerous. I’ll be back soon.” Then, she left.

Stephen stood there alone with the wishing machine. He looked at the touch pad and held his hand out towards it. Just one idea and a touch of his hand and he could change his reality. It was almost too good to be true. He looked back at the ice cream bar in his hand to remind himself that it was true. He was holding the proof that it did work.

“But, it’s still experimental,” he cautioned himself. “It could malfunction or something. I might wish myself out of existence if I’m not careful.”

Still, all of his fantasies were one touch away from becoming reality. He walked over to the computer to see if the machine was still turned on. The monitor said the machine was “active” and there was a “90% charge” in the capacitor banks.

He was just about to walk over to the pad to use the machine, but he paused at the desk. Three framed pictures on it had caught his attention. He saw that they were family photos, which surprised him, since he had suspected that his mother had become so focused on her research that she had all but forgotten her family.

The first photo showed his mother and father together, looking younger than he had ever seen them. It was their wedding photo, and they seemed so happy together. He felt a pang of grief.

The next photo was a picture of him and his sister when they were about 12 years old. It must have been that year, since she was noticeably taller than him. For most of their childhood, people had mistaken the two of them for twins, since they were born about 11 months apart, which would make them at least “Irish Twins.” Stephen had started school a year before Niki and had always had an inch or two of height advantage on her, until puberty came for her earlier than it did for him. She blew past him in height and development for a year or so. She even started calling him “little brother” for a while. It was embarrassing to say the least, and she reveled in making him squirm in discomfort and envy.

It was that year that his father’s cancer came back out of remission again. His father had first been diagnosed just after Stephen was born. That was probably why his parents had tried for a new baby so soon. They might have felt that there was no time left and that they could not wait until later because there would not be a later. Yet, they were able to fight back the cancer, and his father went into remission just in time for Niki to be born.

The cancer came back again when Stephen and Niki were seven. The third photo was a family portrait of all four of them from that year. They were smiling, but there was a strained quality to it as if they were trying a little too hard to look happy. His father wore a hat to hide his bald head. He looked gaunt but still happy to be with his family. Stephen remembered the worry of that year very clearly and the relief when his father got well again.

Then, when Stephen was 12, the cancer came back, and his father never got well again.

Stephen looked back at the photo of his 12-year-old self, looking so fresh and energetic, just on the cusp of puberty, not yet having to deal with a another cancer battle or a dead father. If there was one time in his life he would go back to, it would be then.

He walked over to the touch pad of the machine. He imagined himself back in that young body again. His hand hovered over the pad. One touch, that’s all it would take. He hesitated. “No,” he said after a tense moment of indecision. It was too dangerous, and his mother had told him not to touch it. She had been through at lot, losing her husband and having to raise two teenagers alone. After his father’s death, she had thrown herself into her work. It was her way of grieving, he guessed. He could not mess with her passion, her source of solace. He turned to walk away.

Suddenly, his melting ice cream bar dripped on the touch pad. “Oops,” he said, and went to wipe the melted ice cream off the pad with his hand. As his hand wiped, he heard the computer beep, and the machine whirred back to life again. “Uh oh,” he said, realizing what he had just done. This time the sound became deafening, and the flash blinded him when it came.

Stephen felt a wave of energy blast through him so strongly that he was sure there would be nothing left of him when it was gone. Yet, he was still there when the sound and light in the room faded. That energy clung to him like a static charge, causing a tingle to run through his whole body as if every part of him was a limb that had fallen asleep. He felt like he was vibrating as if his body was ringing like a bell. It felt amazing. Every inch of his skin was as sensitive as the tip of his penis. Just breathing was turning in himself on. He felt himself slowly shrinking. His skin tingled where his body hair vanished. His muscles melted away, body slimming down, bones shortening, height dropping away. Suddenly, he fell backwards through puberty so quickly that it felt as if his feet lifted off the ground. He felt his T-shirt shift on him as his shoulders narrowed. Then, his shorts and underwear dropped to the floor as his clothes became too big for his prepubescent body.

As the transformation slowed to a halt, the overwhelming pleasure of the experience became too much to take. He felt all that transforming energy and all the stimulation of a grown man pent-up inside the body of a boy. He had to let it out somehow. Without even a conscious thought, his hand found his penis. He pumped at his immature genitals only for a few seconds before an earth shattering orgasm rocketed through his whole body. He squirted out a stream of cum like a fountain of liquid joy. The pleasure was so overpowering that he though he would lose his mind. His legs gave out, and he collapsed onto the floor in a moaning heap of skinny boy limbs.

He lay there, half catatonic for a minute, his brain unable to function in the flood of endorphins and hormones. He drooled on the floor as he attempted to speak, trying to call for help.

Soon, though, his body begin to calm down and his mind cleared. That tingling energy dissipated, and he regained control of his limbs. He sat up and tried to control his breathing.

“Wow,” he said. His voice came out in a pleasant soprano. He rubbed his throat and felt no sign of an Adam’s apple. He had forgotten what it felt like to have a voice like a flute. “Oh, that was amazing,” he said to hear that lovely young voice again. He stood up and pulled up his shorts, feeling somewhat surprised to find that they now fit him perfectly. In fact, all of his clothes fit him just fine again even though he could tell he was much smaller now. “They must have changed after I did,” he said. He looked at his hands and was amazed to see how large they seemed. Then, he remembered something and checked his feet. “They’re huge too,” he said looking at his adult-sized feet attached to his boy sized legs. He remembered being this exact age, feeling that his feet and hands were too large. That was the same age he had been when he had first orgasmed. “No wonder it felt so great,” he said. “That must have been this body’s first time. I had my first time a second time,” he chuckled and smiled.

Then, he heard the door to the basement open, and his smile vanished. “Shit,” he said as he heard footsteps on the stairs. He had to change back before his mother found him. He put his hand on the pad and wished to be his normal age, but nothing happened. When he checked the monitor, it said the machine was “active” but there was only a “5% charge” in the capacitor bank. A red warning message blinked, “Insufficient Power.”

“Uh oh,” he said and turned back to see his mother carrying a package down the stairs.

He looked for a place to hide, but before he could move, his mother said, “Well, looks like nothing blew up while I was upstairs.”

“I-I can explain,” he said. “You see the ice cream bar…”

“Oh,” she said when she walked up to him. “You dropped your ice cream again.”

“Huh?” he said and looked at the floor. His ice cream bar was laying at his feet, melting into a white puddle.

His mother set down her box on a table and said, “Let me clean that up.” She grabbed some paper towels and began to scoop up the melted ice cream. Stephen noticed that she was also wiping up his cum from the floor, thinking that it was more ice cream. When she had finished cleaning up after him, she said, “Looks like you got a little on your shorts as well.”

He looked down at the wet spot on his crotch and blushed. “Oops,” he said.

“New rule,” she said. “No food in the lab. Okay?”

“Uh, okay,” he said, feeling amazed that she had not noticed that he was now six years younger than he had been when she had last seen him. She looked just the same as before, though, standing in front of him, looking down at him. She was taller than him! How many years had it been since that was true? Comparing their heights, he estimated that he must have lost at least a foot in height, and yet she had no idea that anything had happened.

“Are you all right?” she asked him, concerned. “You look a bit… shocked.”

“I feel fine,” he said. “Actually, I feel great. I guess I’m kind of overcome by the machine. It’s… incredible.”

“Oh,” she said, “Thank you, I guess. I’ve put a lot of work into it, and I’m glad to see it’s finally working.” She looked at the monitors and frowned. “Huh?” she said.

“What is it?” Stephen asked, worried that she had finally figured out what he had done.

“The power’s drained,” she said. “That’s strange. Changing the Fudgsicle shouldn’t have used that much energy. Hmm…”

“So,” he said. “Bigger changes use more energy?”

“Yes,” she said. “Oh well, looks like we’re done experimenting for now. It’s going to take at least half a day for the capacitor banks to recharge again. I’ll have to check the wiring to see if there’s some fault causing it to drain power too fast. For now though, we better let it rest.” She flipped a switch, and a message on the screen said “Shut Down.” Then, the room went mostly silent again. “Well,” she said. “I’ll be checking on the machine for a little while, but I’ll make us lunch later. Sound good?”

“Yeah,” Stephen said. “That sounds great.”

“Good,” she said. “Go check on your sister. Make sure she’s up. I know it’s summer, but I don’t want her getting into the habit of sleeping the day away.”

“Sure,” he said. “I’ll check on Niki.”

“Thanks,” she said and turned her attention back to her work.

As he walked to the stairs, Stephen let out a sigh of relief. He had avoided getting caught using the machine, but now he had a bigger problem (or, in terms of scale at least, a smaller problem). He was trapped in the body of a 12-year-old boy until the wishing machine recharged.

He paused to look down at his boy body. Then, he smiled. “This is going to be an interesting day.”

Stephen stumbled slightly going up the steps. While his body felt very light and energetic, the steps felt strangely tall and his toes on his big feet kept catching the edge of the stairs. Still, he managed to make it upstairs with the help of the railing. He headed out the basement door and around the corner towards the next staircase, looking forward to getting a look at himself in the bathroom mirror upstairs.

But, he stopped when he saw Niki was laying on the couch in his usual spot, watching TV as he had been doing earlier that day. Sure, there was nothing particularly unusual about that, but it was the fact that she was only wearing her underwear and a white tank top that caused Stephen to halt in his tracks.

While her attention was focused on the TV, Stephen stood there and stared at the bare parts of her body. She had her feet up on the armrest nearest to Stephen. His eyes traced the bumpy curves of her jellybean toes down her soft feet to her ankles and along the wide bare expanse of her shaved legs all the way over to her hips and her pink striped underwear.

He had the impulse to reach out and touch her. He wanted to run his hands over her smooth skin. He wanted to cup her breasts and kiss her lips. He wanted to feel every inch of her beautiful body.

“What do you want, kid?” Niki asked him.

Their eyes met. She must have noticed him staring. “Uh,” he said. “Nothing, I was just…”

“Sit down or leave,” she said, turning her attention back to the TV. “Don’t just stand there staring like a creep.”

“S-sorry,” he said. He hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether he wanted to look at himself or to look at her more. Naturally, he walked over to the recliner and took a seat. From there, he could look at her from an angle behind her head.

His eyes kept being pulled back to her legs and her crotch and the shape of where those parts of her met. He looked away and thought, What am I doing? I’ve seen her dressed like this before. I don’t need to stare. Still, her body fascinated him now, and, according to the tightness his his shorts, it was arousing him as well. Stupid hormones, he though. Calm down. He tried to will away his growing erection, but his body seemed to have a mind of its own. He tried to think of something else, but the idea that he was in the same room as a half-naked young woman was too exciting to ignore. Realizing that he was tenting out his shorts pretty noticeably now, he put his feet up on his chair to try to hide his boy boner between his bent legs. He hugged his knees closer to him. It was only a few minutes later that he realized he had gone into the fetal position because of his uncontrollable attraction to her.

“Well,” Niki said as she sat up and put her feet on the floor. “I’ve got to get to work soon, so the TV is all yours. Have fun!” She tossed the remote to him, and he fumbled catching it, letting it fall on the floor. When he bent forward to pick it up, she chuckled.

“What?” he asked.

“Oh! It’s nothing,” she said. “Nothing big at least.” She chuckled again and walked away.

Stephen was too focused on watching her butt as she left to immediately understand what she meant. It was only when she was gone that he realized she had noticed his erection when he had reached for the remote. “Nothing big?” he said, understanding her insult at last. He sighed. How embarrassing! Once more she had caught him in a moment of sexual passion, although this time she seemed less grossed out by it and more amused. She must have thought it was cute that she had given him a little-boy stiffy.

Stephen was reminded of when they both had been 12 before. It had been very much like that then as well. Not long after Niki had begun to develop, she had quickly realized exactly what affect her body had on the boys around her. Stephen had been almost a guinea pig for her as she experimented with getting attention from boys. She had gone out of her way to dress provocatively around him, seeing how he would react. Back then, he had tried to suppress his incestuous attraction to her, but, thanks to his hormones, he had the same same amount of success then as he had just now, which was not much.

And, he was still hard! Even just thinking about her was enough to make him stiff now.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “This body is ridiculous.” His hormones were running though his veins like a drug. His brain was soaked in them, while his dick waited ready and eager to act on his impulsive sexual whims. Any provocation no matter how small seemed strong enough to set off his horniness.

As out of control as that felt, he realized that he was enjoying the sensation. His senses were turned all the way up, and his body felt like an overcharged battery. Every emotion was a little too intense, too overwhelming, while every thought was a little too intrusive, too hard to dismiss. He was a prisoner to his passions, yet he was starting to like this prison.

Niki returned to the room a short while later, dressed up in her waitress uniform. She had her blond her hair up in a pony tail and was wearing a purple polo shirt with a black collar. It was unbuttoned, showing off a hint of cleavage. Below, she wore a black tube skirt that hugged her hips tightly and showed off her stocking covered legs from just above the knees. And, below that, she wore a shiny pair of black leather shoes with heels just high enough to accentuate her already nice butt. She paused to check her makeup one last time in a small wall mirror. It was impeccable, of course, and not too thick. Stephen was sure she would make a fortune from her male patrons’ tips.

Again, she noticed him checking her out. She smiled and said, “You have a good night, kid. I’ll see you around.” Then, she grabbed her purse and left the house.

He hesitated a moment before following her outside. There was no reason for him to go after her, but he found could not help himself. He felt compelled to be near her, to look at her as much as he could. He needed to watch her until she was out of sight.

Before she got to her car, though, someone called to her, “Hi, Niki!”

“Hi, Melissa,” Niki replied.

Stephen looked at Melissa, their next-door neighbor, and paused as the teen girl approached. Her long red hair drifted in the gentle breeze, shining in beautiful contrast to the porcelain-like skin of her face. She wore a dirty pair of jeans and a simple T-shirt. Sure, she had a casual style, but it suited her perfectly. Melissa had never been a show-off like Niki. She was shy and surprisingly small for her age, standing just a couple of inches under five feet tall. Still, Stephen thought she was one of the prettiest women he had ever seen.

Stephen thought back to his childhood, his original one. The three of them had grown up together. Melissa had been in the same class as Niki and only a year behind Stephen. They had spent many a summer day out playing in the woods or climbing around a playground. The girls had been Stephen’s two best friends, but then the dark times came: puberty. It had hit Melissa first, but she only ended up growing a little taller than them. Meanwhile, Stephen had noticed Niki acting increasingly colder towards Melissa, which he eventually had recognized as jealousy. Then, it had been Niki’s turn to grow. She had blown past both of them in height and development, and very shortly afterwards, she had stopped spending much time with either of them. Apparently, to Niki they had seemed too childish and small to be worth her time anymore, literally beneath her.

Things had gotten awkward for Stephen and Melissa after that. Without a third person around, they had become just a boy and a girl handing out together. That time together had started to feel more like dating and less like playing, and neither of them was bold enough to admit that they should actually date each other. Instead, they had drifted apart. They had seen each other less and less often, and, in time, their occasional stilted conversations had stopped happening altogether. They became simply neighbors and would exchange pleasantries when they saw each other, but their conversations never extended beyond simple small talk.

Stephen always wondered what might have happened if he had just found the guts to ask Melissa out.

“Hi, Stephen,” Melissa said, cheerfully. “How you doin’?”

“Uh,” Stephen said, realizing he was not even capable of simple small talk anymore. “H-hi.” He gave her a shy wave and avoided looking her in the eyes. “I’m good… I guess.”

“I haven’t seen you around for a little while. What are you up to?” Melissa asked in an uncharacteristically chatty tone.

“Yeah,” Niki said. “What are you up to?”

“Uh,” he said, realizing that he could not admit he was too horny for his sister to keep himself from trying to follow her everywhere. “Just… wanted to get outside.”

“It’s a nice day. I think everyone’s going outside to do something. You going for a bike ride or something?” Melissa asked.

“Yeah,” Stephen said, happily running with her suggestion. “That’s it. I’m going to ride my bike.” Stephen briefly wondered if she was more comfortable speaking with him since he was a kid now.

“Where is your bike,” Niki asked.

“Uh,” he said. “In the garage, I guess.”

“Maybe you should have opened the garage then, genius,” Niki said.

Stephen looked at the closed garage door and said, “Yeah.”

The following awkward silence was physically painful.

“Well,” Niki said. “Please, excuse my brother. He’s at that age. You know?”

“Oh?” Melissa said.

“Yeah,” Niki said and added in a conspiratorial whisper, “It’s pretty bad. I think his brain is struggling to handle the hormones.”

“Oh,” Melissa said.

Stephen wished then that he could actually wish himself out of existence.

“What are you up to?” Niki asked Melissa

“Gardening,” she said, holding up a pair of dirty gloves. “Helping my mom fill the flower pots.”

“How fun,” Niki said. “Well, I better get going. You two enjoy yourselves.”

They all said their goodbyes before Niki drove away, and then Stephen was left alone with Melissa. He realized that they were both about the same height again. He thought about mentioning that. Instead, they both just froze there for a moment.

“So…” she said.

“So…” he said.

Silence.

“Stephen!” his mother called for him. “Where are you? I’m making lunch!”

“I’m coming!” he yelled back. He said a quick, “bye,” to Melissa and then escaped to the safety of his home.

When he jogged into the kitchen, his mother asked, “What’s the matter?”

“What?” he said, still looking back over his shoulder as if he were being chased.

“You’re out of breath.”

“Oh,” he said. “No, I’m fine.”

“Okay,” she said. “Well, I’m making BLTs. You like the crust cut off your toast, don’t you?”

He smiled.

***

When they were done with lunch, his mother asked him what he was doing next.

“I guess I’m going for a bike ride,” he said, deciding it was best not to be a liar to Melissa.

“Have fun,” his mother said. “I’m heading back to my lab. I’m still checking over the machine, looking for that power drain.”

Stephen took a sip of water and tried to look innocent as she returned to her lab.

Then, he went to the garage, opened it up, and discovered he had a bicycle in there that was just his size. “Cool,” he said. He mounted it, and, after a wobbly moment or two, he took it for a ride through the neighborhood.

It was strange being back on a bike again. He had only rode on one occasionally since getting his driver’s license, but there was something freeing about it. No engine. No license necessary. No rules about where he could go. Just two wheels and his own stamina were all he needed to get anywhere. He cut through lawns and rode through wooded paths, hopping over logs and splashing through streams.

He found his way to his old middle school, which he realized was probably his current middle school now. He stopped next to his old playground. With school out for the summer, it was currently deserted. He looked around. All the old swings and familiar pieces jungle gym equipment were still there. He spent at least an hour exploring that obstacle course again, getting a feel for his youthful body and its seemingly boundless energy. He played. It was as simple as that. He just enjoyed being a boy for a while. Then, once he had scaled to the top of the jungle gym and sat up there like a young monarch surveying his childhood kingdom, he realized that he had forgotten to look in the mirror earlier. It was the one thing missing from the whole experience. He was dying to see himself now. So, he climbed down, and returned home on his bike. He only paused a moment outside his house to stare at Melissa’s butt as she gardened. Then, it was time to get check out his own body.

***

The mirror in the bathroom was too high. Sure, he could see his head and shoulders in it, but that was not enough to satisfy his curiosity. However, he did spend some time in there making faces at his reflection and giggling at the silly boy he saw. It was the same boy with shaggy brown hair that he had seen in the photograph. Only now, he was on the other side of the picture. He put his hands on his cheeks and brushed his fingers over the short wispy white hairs on his face. He had forgotten about those. It was a face that had never felt a razor. It was a face that was unburdened by the pressures of adulthood. It was a face that was at the height of childhood and at the beginning of the end of it as well.

He looked down at his body. “I need to see it all,” he said. “I need to touch everything.”

He looked over at his sister’s bedroom. Through her open door, he could see her full length floor mirror.

“No,” he warned himself. “Don’t mess with her stuff. She always finds out when you go in there.”

But, the mirror was right there. No one else was even on the ground floor of the house. He was alone, and she would be at work for a while. It was now or never.

“Fine,” he said, giving in to the temptation of her mirror.

He trespassed in her room, feeling like every step was a little crime in itself. Though, once he was in front of the mirror, he forgot to be worried about where he was.

Seeing himself from head to toe, he finally had an appreciation for how small he was. His whole body felt all out of proportion with its big feet and hands. His head seemed a bit too big as well, but that was probably because the rest of his body was comparatively smaller.

He took off his shirt. His hairless skin was smooth and unblemished with only the hints of muscles on the bony frame underneath. He had no armpit hair, and when he sniffed his pits, he smelled nothing but ordinary sweat there.

He looked down at his shorts. It was time, he decided. He dropped his shorts and underwear to the floor and stepped out of them.

He was naked, feeling even more naked since his body was almost totally hairless. He had grown so accustomed to his leg hair that it was a bit shocking to see there was not even a trace of it now. He looked at his crotch and found a few lonely pubic hairs above his genitals. They were his first proof of oncoming puberty. He cupped himself with one hand and marveled at how small he was. Then, his over-sensitivity caused the touch of his hand to arouse himself. He felt himself getting hard. It was growing. Everything about him was ready to grow, but that was the part of him that could grow now.

“You are beautiful,” he told himself as he gazed at his reflection and tried to forget the man he would become. Adulthood was laying siege to this body, ready to mar its innocent perfection with ugly maturity, but for this brief moment, everything was just right.

His dream had come true. He was the age he had yearned to return to. How many times had he fantasized about this moment? More than he could remember. Now, it had happened. It was real, and it was everything he hoped it would be. He wrapped his arms around his young body in a hug and started happily at the joyful boy reflected in front of him.

In his reverie, he had not noticed the faint sound of the door opening and closing downstairs. The fact that he was not alone anymore only became clear to him when he heard footsteps approaching him up the stairs.

“Shit,” he whispered. Niki was home early!

If he ran out into the hall now, she would catch him. She would know he had been naked in her room. No way, he though. He gathered up his clothes but had no time to put them back on. Instead, he looked for a place to hide and rapidly snuck into her closet when he realized it was his only option. Just as he had silently shut the louvered closet doors, he heard Niki enter the bedroom. He looked out through the thin gap between the doors to watch her walk into sight.

He held his breath. She shut the bedroom door, put down her bag, and pulled off her shoes. Then, her phone rang.

“Hello, Kevin,” she said, sounding irritated. “You could just text me, you know.”

There was silence while she listened to him and took a seat on her bed. Stephen allowed himself to breath while shielding his mouth with his hands.

“I will reply to you when I’m ready to reply,” she said as she lay on her back. “You just need to learn to be patient. We’re still going out tonight. I just had to finish up a single shift.”

That’s why she’s home early, Stephen thought.

More silence, and then she said, “Fine, I’ll be ready in about 20 minutes. Be outside then, and no honking. Got it?” She hung up and tossed her phone on her pillow. Then, she rested on her bed for a moment, and Stephen got a good look at the hills on her chest, how they rose and fell gently with each breath. He felt wrong for being there, watching her secretly, but he also felt a bit exhilarated by the danger and by the thought of what he might see next.

Then, as if she were reading his mind and acting on his desires, Niki stood up and immediately began stripping off her clothes. First, she pulled off her polo shirt and tossed it aside, giving Stephen a good look at her bra. It was an ordinary tan-colored bra, nothing special, but he felt his hormones kicking in again. He was still excited from checking himself out in the mirror, and he was getting even more excited already just from seeing so much of her skin. She removed her skirt, leaving herself wearing only panties and stockings below, which sounds sexier than it was. Again, she was wearing pretty ordinary underwear, just functional clothes that were comfortable for work. Still, Stephen was losing his mind looking at her.

Next, she reached her hands behind her back, unhooked her bra, and removed it. Stephen’s jaw dropped. Breasts! Big beautiful breasts were right there, in reality, right in front of him. To his shame, this was the first time since infancy that he had gotten a look at the real things in person. Her delicate nipples stood out on the faintly shaded discs of her areola, all resting on the roundness of her tits. He watched the weight of that flesh shift as she bent forward to remove her panties and stockings. Then, she stepped out of the last of her clothes, and she was naked. She had carefully trimmed her pubic hair, giving Stephen a good look at her pussy, a surprisingly simple slit, showing off only a hint of the folds within.

Stephen was so focused on her body, that he hardly even noticed when he began masturbating. Soon enough, though, he was jerking himself like a spider monkey. There was no thought behind the action. It was instinctual, primal. He saw sex, and he had to respond with sex. It felt so good, it felt oh so damn good. She did a turn, admiring her body in the mirror, and Stephen felt like she was turning just for him. It was all for him. This was his show. He wanted to keep quiet, but he had lost control. A little moan escaped his lips, his head bumped a hanger, and his breathing grew heavier. He closed his eyes as the climax approached.

The closet door opened. “What the hell are you d-” Niki began to say, but then she gasped and started to scream when she saw exactly what he was doing.

The shock from hearing her screaming shattered his concentration, rudely knocking him out of his fantasy. He cringed and leaned back, holding up his hands while leaving his erection painfully begging for attention.

“You little pervert!” she yelled at him furiously.

“N-Niki,” he said, blushing. “I… I…”

“Mom!” she yelled.

“Wait,” he said. “I can explain. I was…”

“Keep away from me!” she screamed at him as she grabbed a blanket and covered herself with it.

“Please, I can explain,” he said as she ran out of the room.

“Mom!” she kept yelling as she went downstairs.

“Shit,” Stephen said as he rushed to pull up his underwear. “How could I let this happen two days in a row?” He could hear Niki and his mother talking downstairs. Then, he heard them walking up the stairs towards him. He finished getting dressed as they drew near.

“Stephen!” his mother said as she entered Niki’s bedroom with Niki wrapped in a blanket close behind her. “What are you doing in your sister’s room?”

“I’ll tell you what he was doing,” Niki said. “That creep was watching me get undressed and spanking his little prick.”

“Niki,” his mother said. “Let me hear what he has to say first.”

Niki groaned in frustration and started pacing in the hallway.

“Well?” his mother said. “Explain yourself.”

Stephen swallowed. He tried to think of a good lie, but nothing came to him. Unfortunately, the truth seemed to be his only option. “I was just using her mirror,” he said. “I wanted to get a look at myself naked. Then, she came home, and I didn’t want to get caught in her room, so I hid in her closet.”

“What did you do in her closet?” his mother asked.

He blushed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know why I did it. I just saw her body, and… I couldn’t help myself.”

His mother sighed. She looked so disappointed, which was even more painful to him than if she had been mad. “Go to your room,” she told him.

He walked past her and saw Niki standing there with murder in her eyes. There were times when he felt she had been unfairly cruel to him in the past. At that moment, though, he felt her fury was totally justified. He wondered what punishment his mother would set for him, but he feared what private punishment Niki would devise to torture him.

He entered his room, lay down on his bed, and covered his face in his hands. Tears began forming in his eyes as his emotions overcame him. What a nightmare the day had turned into. He struggled to understand how he had so completely lost control of himself. It’s this young body, he decided. He loved this body, but it was too hard to control when it came to sex, as if it were going out of its way to embarass him and to get him in trouble. Sure, it had been a fun ride for most of today, but being continuously horny around girls was starting to get old. He was really wishing for the ride to be over now.

Again, he could hear his sister and his mother talking.

“I caught him doing it yesterday,” Niki said. “He was on his computer when I went to get him for dinner, but I tried to pretend that I didn’t see anything.”

Stephen briefly wondered what it was his 12-year-old self in this alternate reality had been looking at when Niki had caught him then.

His mother sighed again. “I guess he’s getting to be that age now,” she said.

“So,” Niki said. “You’re just going to let him blow his load all over the house?”

“No,” his mother said. “And, watch your language. He needs to learn appropriate ways to express his sexuality. He also needs to learn to respect your privacy and your space.”

“Ground him,” Niki said.

“I will,” his mother replied. “…and more. Don’t worry. Get dressed. I’ll handle him.”

Stephen wiped his eyes dry as his mother entered his room. “I suppose you heard what we were saying out there,” she said.

Stephen nodded. “I’m so sorry,” he said.

“Well,” she said. “You can prove you’re sorry by staying out of Niki’s room from now on. In fact, you might want to avoid her altogether until she’s had some time to calm down. I hope you understand what a horrible thing it was to do that to your sister. No sister, or any girl for that matter, should have her privacy invaded like that. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling horrible about himself.

“Good,” she said. “Now, for your punishment, you are grounded for a week. No hanging out with friends, no leaving the yard, and no more computer.”

“No computer?” he said and watched as she walked over to his computer, reached behind it, and unplugged his keyboard and mouse. “But-”

She held his keyboard and mouse in her hands and said, “You’ll get these back when you’re no longer grounded and when you’ve proved you can behave yourself.”

“Listen, I-”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to hear another excuse from you. I can understand your hormones are making you feel a bit out of control, but there’s no excuse for what you did. I’m very disappointed in you.”

The words stung, but what was worse was knowing how much he deserved them. She was totally right.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m sorry I let you both down like that.”

“Good,” she said. “Now, no dinner for you tonight either. You can stay in here the rest of the night and think about what you’ve done.”

He nodded, and she left his room, closing the door behind her.

He cried a bit more, feeling totally awful about himself. Then, he ran out of tears and began to wonder what he should do next. For now, he was trapped in his room, but he realized he was also still trapped in this body, this out-of-control masturbation machine. He had had enough of it. He needed to be an adult again and fast.

“The machine,” he said. He had to turn himself back to normal. There was no way he could let himself grow up again the slow way. The idea of starting over and having to deal with puberty all over again was too much for him to take. If the machine was working again, he needed to sneak downstairs and try to use it to reverse what he had done earlier today, but he would need to be very careful about it. If his mother caught him near it, she might just lock him out from using it forever, and then he would really be stuck like this. “I’ll have to wait until she’s gone to bed. Then, I’ll have to be very quiet.”

He waited. He read a book, he explored the toys on his shelves, and he checked the clock over and over. Time dragged on. He heard the sound of a car driving up to their house. Then, the front door opened, and he imagined that Niki had left for her date. Later, he heard someone walking up to his room. He shut off his lights, got in bed, and pretended to be asleep. His mother opened his door a crack and peeked inside. Then, she left, and Stephen knew he just had to wait a little longer until she was asleep. He felt himself getting drowsy, but he slapped his face and sat up. He had to keep awake, or he would lose his opportunity.

When the house had been silent for another hour, he decided he could wait no longer. He snuck of out of his room in the dark, tip toeing through the halls, doing his best to make no sound. He worked his way down the stairs slowly. Then, he walked towards the basement door, but paused when he heard a noise. The lock was turning in the front door. Niki was home!

He rushed as quietly as he could to the basement door, opened it, and entered the basement. He shut the basement door just as he heard the front door open. For the second time that night, he found himself hiding from his sister behind a door. He heard her footsteps approach him and held his breath, but her steps kept going past him to the stairs. He let out a sigh of relief and waited as Niki walked upstairs and then waited even longer until he was sure she was in her bedroom.

Then, he headed down into the basement with the dim light of the machines providing just enough illumination for him to navigate his way around the stacks of capacitor banks to the computer at the center of it all. He sat in the chair and woke the computer up. Thankfully, it was not password locked.

He found the switch his mother had flipped to activate the machine. He flipped it, and the room hummed back to life. He hoped that everyone was asleep then as the sound seemed ridiculously loud in the silent house. He checked the monitor. The machine was “active” and was back to 93% charge in the capacitor bank. He just hoped that would be enough.

He walked up to the touch pad and hovered his hand over it. He concentrated on being his normal self again and almost touched his hand to the pad. “Wait,” he told himself. “I can change more than myself. Can’t I? What if I wished that Niki hadn’t caught me on my computer or in her closet? The machine can do that, right?” There was no one to answer his question. He doubted even his mother had an answer to that question. This would be another experiment, he realized. “I have to try to fix what happened,” he said. “Here goes nothing.”

Again, he concentrated on becoming his 18-year-old self again, but he also wished that Niki had never caught him masturbating over the past couple of days. He pressed his hand to the pad, and the machine came alive again. In the darkness, the glow from it blinded him. He felt himself tingle once more as the energy blasted through him and energized his molecules. He felt himself growing, his boy clothes becoming painfully tight. He felt hair sprouting all over his body. He felt muscles swelling on him. Then, just before his clothes burst apart, he felt the pressure from them lighten up as they grew to match his new size. Then, the changes stopped, and he felt the energy fade from his body.

“Wow,” he said and was relieved to hear the baritone of his adult voice once more. He touched his body and his throat, feeling how thick and properly lumpy he was now. “I’m back.” He checked the computer. The capacitors were down to “8% charge” now. “Thank you,” he said to the machine as he flipped the power switch, and the room went silent again. Then, he yawned. “What a day,” he said as he felt himself ready to pass out from exhaustion. Somehow, he had made it back to normal, but he realized he had been lucky to make it back. As bad as things had gone, he knew they could have been worse. He yawned again. The stress of the whole experience had totally drained him, it seemed.

Stephen made his way out of the lab and back up two flights of stairs all the way to his bedroom, where he collapsed on his bed and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

Continued in Chapter 2.