Pansexuality—An Abyssus Abbey Story

by Pen Darke

After an encounter with a strange, demonic creature, a young shepherd finds himself changing and growing in surprising ways.

Kleanthes found himself almost home by the time his thoughts began to clear. His flock were eager, anticipating the comfort of the paddock and the promise of grain to fill their bellies, gamboling about him, hurried in their pace.

Surely none of that had happened, he tried to tell himself. Surely it had all been an idle daydream. Yes, that was it. He’d drifted into a sun-nap on the hillside, and dreamed that one of the lambs had wandered off. It was in that dream that he’d followed the lamb to a hilltop clearing where he’d met a great, monstrous creature—something he had no word for: a giant armored in ruby scales, with impossible muscles, jutting black horns, great wings like those of a bat, and four glowing red eyes. That was the only thing that made sense. A monster like that in reality would not have been gentle and kind. Nor would it have been so deeply and irresistibly lust-inducing that Kleanthes would have… done what he did.

No. Only a passing afternoon dream. He wouldn’t be the first shepherd who fell to flights of fancy wandering alone in the hills. Only—if it was a dream, then why did he still remember so vividly the hot flesh of the creature’s phallus in his mouth? Why did his throat feel stretched, almost abused? Why could he still taste the creature’s cream on his tongue? Why could he smell the rich scent of its maleness saturating his clothes, his hair, his short beard?

Shaking his head, he opened the paddock gate, herding his flock through with nudges of his crook, though the sheep knew the way and scarcely needed any encouragement. He counted them off as they passed—in late summer, he’d have called them all by name, but they hadn’t named the spring lambs yet. Those that survived to summer would get names. The sheep were all there, even the little one that had definitely not wandered off and led him to a clearing with a—perhaps it had been a god of some kind?

No, a dream. Certainly a dream.

He closed the paddock, barred it, and made for his house.

It was a sizable house for their family—though once they had been larger. His father’s brother and their family had lived with them, as well as his mother’s father and mother. But Kleanthes’s grandparents had died, and his uncle had moved his family away from Satyros, claiming the climate and fishing superior a half-day’s journey away, in Agkistri. So for now, it was just Kleanthes, his parents, and his brother, Tychon.

His mother sat outside the house, enjoying the evening light as she painted, a pot of brilliant blue frit beside her, the wooden chair she decorated braced upside down between her knees. “Yassou,” she called as he approached.

“Yassou, Miter. Is Pater back already?” He needn’t have asked; the aroma of cooking fish wafting from indoors was already making his mouth water.

“Yes, he returned early. Big catch this time.” His mother gave him a sharp look. “Everything all right, Kleon? You look dazed. Did you hit your head again?”

“No, Miter, everything is fine.”

“Well, go and help your father.” She flicked her brush at him, and he only barely dodged several drops of blue paint that sailed in his direction. “And go wash up first. You reek of sheep, I can smell you from here.”

“Ugh, my feet hurt from walking all day.”

“Then they’ll feel better washed, won’t they? Get on, you.”

Grumbling, Kleanthes slouched to the back of the house where the washbasin was located and stripped out of his exomis. He gave it a sniff and wrinkled his nose—it did smell pungent. He balled it up and tossed it into the laundry basket, then took a fresh sea sponge from the sill and scrubbed himself vigorously with the soap his mother made from lye and ewe’s milk fat, leaving his skin reddened and smarting. Fresh sponges were always a little rough at first, but they did leave him feeling clean. He rinsed with a ladle and water from the basin, shook dry, and wandered inside with a clean exomis clinging to his damp skin.

He immediately coughed at the oily cloud of smoke. “Pater, can’t you cook outside?” he complained, waving his arm in front of his face.

“Like simple fishermen?” His father’s face, ruddy from sunburn and windburn, grinned at him through the white smoke. “This is how they do it in Athina, son! All the—”

“Yes, all the rich merchants have their stoves indoors,” Kleanthes incanted. “But Pater, you are a simple fisherman.”

“And you are a simple shepherd boy.”

“Just shepherd. I haven’t been a boy for years now.”

“But there is no reason why you should have to live as a simple shepherd! The gods gave the marvels of the world to all of us, if we just learn how to use them. Do you know,” his father gestured with the point of his fish knife as his other hand deftly flipped the cooking fish, “that they have invented a device that can let you measure where the stars are?”

“But Pater, we can look at the sky. We can see where the stars are.” Kleanthes pushed open the shutters and used a palm fan to help usher the smoke from the room.

“You are not a sailor. You wouldn’t understand. It could show us where even the stars we cannot see will be. To never be lost, to know always where you are in the world, that is something remarkable.” Oil sizzled in the pan. His father looked up at him, his eyes bright and watering from the smoke. “Is there not something like that that speaks to you, son?”

Kleanthes shrugged, settling back onto the bench and leaning his elbows on the table. “I know most of the places I take the sheep. I always know where I am.” He let out a long sigh. “I’m happy where I am, Pater. I wish you could understand that. I feel the land around me, I smell the sea air, I guide the sheep and watch the breeze, and I’m at peace.”

The heavy clomp of sandals announced his older brother’s arrival. “More like he can’t let go of Miter’s apron.” He threw himself at the table more than sat at it, sending it jumping across the floor a little. Three years Kleanthes’s senior and a head taller, he carried a broad frame strengthened and weathered by days at sea, his face brown from the sun and windburned, like their father’s. And he stank of fish and salt and wet.

“Ya, Tychon,” Kleanthes said, layering his voice with feigned weariness. “How is the boat?”

“Challenging.” Tychon poured himself a mug of wine—Antigonos, the owner of the vineyard across the island traded it generously for their cheese. “Real man’s work.”

“Shepherding is challenging,” Kleanthes objected, but they’d had this argument before.

“You know what gets me up in the morning and back on the boat? Knowing that I don’t know if I’ll have the strength for the tasks of the day. Needing to test myself. To push myself harder than the day before.”

“Yes. Fine.”

“And you know what makes me sleep like a lotus-eater at night? Knowing that I gods-damned succeeded.”

There were a hundred objections to this. What would Tychon know about the challenge of helping a sheep with a wounded hoof make it back to safe pasture, or about spending all night up with a ewe during a difficult birthing, or treating any number of animals for parasites, mites, or diseases? But there was no use raising these points with him; none of these could penetrate the bubble of confidence in his own manliness in which he strode, or, more often, floated. He sighed. “First Pater, now you. Did you spend the last two days planning to ambush me with this when you got back?”

“Oh, don’t be like that, Kleon. I just don’t want you to go through life missing out on what I’ve got.”

“I’m not missing out.”

His brother gave him a wide grin before swigging from his wine mug again. “You only say that because you don’t know what I’ve got.”

Kleanthes eyed him warily. “And what’s that?”

Tychon’s grin, if possible, grew even cockier. “I’m getting married.”

“What?” That was a surprise, indeed. “To whom?”

“Sappho. Over on Rothos. We’ve been selling fish to her restaurant for a while. She likes my shoulders.”

“Well.” Kleanthes leaned back on the bench, feeling suddenly unmoored. “That… that is a surprise. I’m happy for you, Tychon. Really.”

His brother came around the other side of the table and threw an arm around him. “Thanks, little brother. But, you know, it means I won’t be living here anymore. And Pater needs help on the boat.”

“The hell I do!” their father roared from the stove. “I can manage just fine on my own. Don’t pressure him, Tychon, he’ll make the choice when he’s ready.”

“But more importantly,” Tychon said with a leer, leaning close enough that Kleanthes could smell the salt in his clothes, “that means it’s your turn next. And how are you going to find a girl on this dusty, dried-up old island? The youngest one here is Xanthippe and she’s got crow’s feet.”

“I—I—” Kleanthes stammered, the color rising to his cheeks. He couldn’t recall ever thinking about girls that much. But the memory—no, dream, it had to be a dream, didn’t it?—of that enormous, powerful creature standing over him, smelling of maleness, of sex, that kept rising unbidden to his mind, and making part of him rise unbidden.

Tychon certainly noticed, because he burst into laughter. “I don’t think we have to worry for long, Pater. Little brother’s ready for love. Let’s just hope he doesn’t just decide to get a little too friendly with those sheep.”

Klean went hot with embarrassment. “You’re disgusting, Tychon,” he growled, and stormed off to his room until dinner.

He awoke in the middle of the night from dreams of something huge and red-scaled, heaving with barely restrained male power. The sheepskins on his kline were cool with his sweat, and an achingly hard erection jutted up from his loins. He panted, resting his fingers around the sensitive flesh. In the night, in the wake of his fading dream, his erection felt bigger, harder. He hadn’t woken up aching like this since he’d been a teenager. There was no way he’d be able to go back to sleep like this.

He glanced over at Tychon’s kline to see if his brother was awake, but only stillness and the sound of heavy breathing came from that side of the room. It was a moonless night anyhow, far too dark to see. Kleanthes tilted his head back and stroked himself slowly; precome had already been oozing slowly from his tip and the slickness of his fingers made his hips twitch on their own. He lost himself in the motion, his fingers seeming to move farther than they should, the taut, hot skin unusually sensitive. He tried to stifle his panting, gripping his shaft tightly—shouldn’t his fingers be able to encircle it? His shaft was a hot, throbbing pole in his grasp, every pulse leaving it feeling a little bigger, a little more achingly hard, a little more—

With his free hand he grabbed a handful of sheepskin and clamped it over his mouth as a moan escaped with the rise of his seed in his shaft; he felt his balls clench so hard it actually hurt. His erection jerked, sending a plume of seed coiling up into the air before it splattered back down onto his chest and belly. He let go of his erection and it thwacked against his belly, the tip striking above his navel. Then it flexed again, firing another long rope of his seed over his head to splatter against the wall. Pleasure wracked him, making his hips jerk again, and he couldn’t help another stifled moan into the wool. And the pleasure just kept rising and rising until finally, still wracked with climax, Kleanthes passed out.

“Kle, what in Hades?”

Kleanthes rubbed blearily at his eyes, blinking up in the early dawn light to see his brother standing over him. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Look!” Tychon waved both hands at him. “Did you sleep outside? What is all this shit everywhere?”

Vague memories of awakening last night filtered through Kleanthes’s sleep-addled brain. Careful to keep himself covered, he scrambled upright, worried about what kind of mess he’d left. He certainly hadn’t expected what he saw. Greenery was sprouting from the wall—lots of fresh-smelling, delicate grass and vines, sprinkled with yellow and pink wildflowers. It grew down the wall from about three feet above his kline’s headboard, which itself seemed to have sprouted a number of young saplings as though the wood itself had been resurrected. He stared at it in confusion and scratched at his chest, which itched, only to find that there were tufts of hair sprouting there, spreading across his chest and growing in a line down beneath the blankets. His heart sped up—he’d been barechested yesterday.

“I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “It wasn’t there last night.”

He leaned forward to sniff at the grass, worried it would smell like him, but it was just grass and flowers, smelling vaguely of springtime. Tychon gave him a shove backward. “Well, don’t touch it. It’s probably some kind of—of infestation!”

“I think it’s just grass,” Kleanthes said doubtfully. “Maybe I… somehow brought seeds in with my clothes, and it got on the wall?” Even he didn’t believe that explanation.

“And it made the wood sprout like that?” Tychon shook his head. “That’s something wrong, maybe some kind of fungus or something. Better get Miter to look at it.” He pulled on his exomis and washed his face at the basin in the hallway. “Like I said, don’t touch it. Just get cleaned up and come to breakfast.”

Once he was gone, Kleanthes pulled back the covers to get a look at himself in the morning light. His once smooth torso had changed; light brown hair dusted his chest and belly, leading down to his cock where the hair seemed thicker and wilder. He fought rising panic as ran his fingers through it; it was soft to the touch, almost downy. Then he caught sight of his dick itself. He should know it well—he saw it every day—but what he carried between his legs now was unfamiliar. Soft, his cock looked nearly twice the size it had been, almost as thick as his wrist, its length draped heavily over round, fuzzy balls the size of duck eggs. He felt he could almost see them pulsing as he stared at them, and his cock, too, stirred as though it knew it was getting attention. It stiffened just a little, but stretched out several fingers-width just from that, pushing his tip through the soft hair that had thickened on his thighs as well.

He couldn’t afford to become aroused right now—it made no sense to become aroused right now—and someone could walk in on him at any moment, so he dressed quickly, stopping at the ewer to run his fingers through his hair, which itself felt thicker, curlier. His scalp felt odd under the hair too, something about the way the skin pulled, but he was suddenly afraid to investigate further. He turned down the hallway, following the scent of fresh baked bread to the kitchen, but even walking, he could feel the difference: the soft brush of his chest hair against his exomis; the oddly heavy swing of his shaft. It was, he realized uncomfortably, visibly pushing out the fabric when he walked, the tip bumping into the side of his thigh with every step. Perhaps he could bind it up in a cloth later—for now, he’d simply have to hope no one noticed.

“...All down the wall,” Tychon was saying around a mouthful of bread. “Just growing everywhere, like—like someone spilled a meadow in the room.”

“That’s unusual,” their father said, pulling a fresh loaf out of the oven. Kleanthes really wished he wouldn’t cook inside; the sun wasn’t even high in the sky and already the room was too warm.

“Unusual?” Tychon repeated in disbelief. “The headboard sprouted, Pater. Like a new tree was growing out of it! That doesn’t happen.”

“Well. Your Miter did shape that kline earlier this year. Maybe the wood was still living. The world is full of mysteries. Good morning, Klean.” His father plunked the loaf of bread on the table, along with a knife. “Slept well, it looks like.”

“I suppose I did.” Kleanthes cut himself a wedge of bread and poured a mugful of water from the ewer. 

“Got something I need you boys to take care of today.”

Tychon looked up. “We’re not going out to sea again?”

Their father snorted. “We should be. But when I went down to the dock, two of our good nets were missing.”

“Meliton?” Tychon asked, scowling.

“Who else? Still believes we owe him for those pots, I’ll warrant.”

“But we didn’t break those! He’s just a thief.”

“Try to be diplomatic when you go and talk to him. Do your best to avoid angering him any further. I doubt he’ll try anything with the two of you there. Just get those nets back.”

Kleanthes felt like scowling, too. The sheep needed tending as well, and they’d grow boisterous and troublesome if ignored. And Meliton was a crotchety old potter who was far too often in his cups to keep his wares unbroken—or his tongue civil. He had a reputation for lurching around the island at night and appropriating items he believed he was owed.

So, that was it. Without the nets, Pater and Tychon couldn’t set sail again. And the longer he was kept from the sea, the more obnoxious Tychon tended to become. The sooner they could resolve this, the sooner Kleanthes could get back to wandering the isle with the flock. Resigned, he took a swig of water from his mug and spluttered in surprise at the taste.

“Klean? What’s wrong?” their father asked.

Kleanthes wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “A little bit early for wine, isn’t it?”

“Wine?” Tychon took the mug and peered at it, then sniffed. “It must have been left out last night. Here.” He handed Kleanthes a clean mug from the shelf. And then, Kleanthes noticed, drained the mug. “Surprisingly good though.”

“Don’t drink wine in the morning, Tychon, you know better!” their mother called from outside.

“How does she know?” Kleanthes muttered, pouring water from the ewer. He sipped at it and then stopped, puzzled. “No, it’s wine. Why would you fill the ewer with wine?”

Their father came over, frowning. “What are you playing at?” He leaned over and squinted into Kleanthes’s mug. “Where did you get that?”

“From the ewer!”

“Ridiculous. I filled it from the spring this morning. Look.” He tilted the ewer for Kleanthes to see—sure enough, clear water splashed in the bottom. “See?” He poured a mug of water for himself and sipped at it. “Water.”

He held out the mug in his thick, stubby fingers, and Kleanthes took it and looked inside. Dark red liquid swirled there. “Wine,” Kleanthes said, and handed it back. 

His father sipped at it and his brow furrowed in bemusement. He gave Kleanthes a long, considering look, and then took another long draught from the mug. “I don’t know how you are doing this,” he said finally, waggling a grease-stained finger at him, “but these pranks of yours are getting a little too elaborate.”

“I don’t prank—”

“Ohhhh yes you do, every time we go out for a long trip, you stay back home and figure out some way to trick me and your poor idiot brother over there. It’s amusing enough, but you should not be wasting our good wine.” He rather conspicuously drained the mug. “Our very good wine. So early in the morning.”

“But I didn’t—”

His father waved a dismissive hand. “Boast about how you did it later. If you’ve got time to play pranks on your father, you’ve got time to get to work. Go on. Get on back and get our nets from Meliton.”

Kleanthes swallowed a lump of somewhat dry bread as he was hauled to his feet by his father. “...But I still didn’t get any water,” he grumbled.

“There’s something off about you,” Tychon opined, eyeing Kleanthes as they walked side by side down the dusty path toward Meliton’s hillside hut. “Are you… taller?”

“I don’t think so,” Kleanthes answered, tugging at his clothes. He’d not been given an opportunity to bind up his loins before leaving, and he could feel the tip of his penis brushing dangerously close to the bottom hem of his exomis.

“Well, your beard has thickened. Suppose you’re finally growing up, eh, little brother?”

“I suppose,” Kleanthes mumbled. The last thing he wanted was more attention from Tychon right now. He sniffed the air, catching the odor of fresh water nearby. “Can we stop? I really need a drink.”

The path continued to a nearby footbridge that passed over a little stream, but he didn’t really didn’t want to drink water from under a bridge, so he made his way up the hillside a short distance and crouched on hands and knees, bending down to sip from the fresh rill. He swallowed once and then sat up in shock, rubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand. Dark red rivulets ran down his arm. His mouth was full of the taste of wine. It was impossible, but the taste was unmistakable. Had he begun to lose his senses?

Slowly, uneasily, he leaned back toward the rill and dipped his fingers into the cold, flowing water. Instantly, the water around his fingers turned dark red, fanning out in ribbons downstream before blending with the rest of the stream. He stared in disbelief, plunging his hand down to the forearm in the water, and the darker color spread, stretching into a long trail of burgundy. He yanked his arm out and sniffed at it. Wine. Several drops of it fell across his clothes, staining the white fabric red.

“Kle? What are you doing up there?” his brother called from the path.

Kleanthes couldn’t keep this to himself. Not anymore. “Come up here! Come see this!”

“What is it? Did you fall in?” Grumbling, his brother clambered up the hill to stand at Kleanthes’s side. “So? What?”

“Look!” Kleanthes dipped his hand into the water again, creating another dark red ribbon in the current.

Tychon frowned. “I don’t understand. Are you bleeding?”

“No, it’s… it’s wine. See?” Kleanthes cupped the liquid in his hands, holding it up to Tychon, who sniffed at it suspiciously.

“How… how are you doing this? Have you got a bladder concealed somewhere?”

“Tych, look at my arms. Do you see anything? It’s turning into wine when I touch it.”

His brother stared, frowning, for a moment. “Well, it obviously can’t be wine. Maybe it’s some, I don’t know, some fungus in the water that changes color when it’s touched.”

That was actually a fairly good explanation, Kleanthes thought, surprised. He hadn’t expected his brother to have that much clarity of thought. “I’ve tasted it. It’s wine. Touch the water yourself if you don’t believe me.”

Tychon rolled his eyes, dropped to his knees by the rill, and dramatically plunged his left arm down to the elbow. He waited for a long moment, staring at the unchanging current. “All right, let me taste it,” he said finally.

Kleanthes cupped water in his hands again, red dripping from his fingers as he lifted his hands to his brother, who leaned down and sipped from the collected liquid. His eyes widened. “It’s wine,” he breathed in amazement. “That’s—that’s really good! Let me have some more!”

Kleanthes raised another cupped handful of wine to his brother’s lips, and Tychon drank deeply from it. He burped and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “It was a different kind of wine that time!” he exclaimed. “So… so delicious. But how can it be? Is this some kind of enchanted stream?”

“I don’t think so,” Kleanthes answered slowly. “Remember this morning, over breakfast?”

“So you weren’t just putting one over on Pater?”

Kleanthes shook his head.

Tychon gave him a long stare. “So.. it’s not the stream that’s enchanted—it’s you!” He scrambled backward, as though suddenly afraid of his brother. “The grass growing from your wall and kline this morning! That was you too, wasn’t it?”

Kleanthes shrugged. He was still thirsty, so he bent down to the stream to drink deeply, hoping he’d manage not to stain his already red-spattered clothing any further. The taste this time was musky-dry, butter and oak. A white wine, of exceptional quality.

“Fill my water gourd!” Tychon suggested, holding it out as Kleanthes sat up, and so he took it and quickly filled it from the stream.

Tychon drained half of it right away. “Peppery, fruity, tart. So good! Klean, Klean, this can only be one thing!”

“What is that?”

“You’ve been blessed by the god Dionysos. Think of it! What does it mean if all water you touch turns to wine?”

“I’ll… always be drunk?” Kleanthes ventured wryly. Truth be told, he was already beginning to feel a little lightheaded.

“You’ll always be drunk!” Tychon crowed. “Plus, now we won’t have to trade with Antigonos for wine anymore. The family will be rich!”

“Let’s not weave the wool we haven’t sheared,” Kleanthes cautioned. “We don’t truly know what this is—or how long it will last.” Not long, he hoped fervently, thinking of the physical changes he’d experienced.

Tychon ignored him. “Can you make a sweet wine?” he asked, proffering his water gourd again.

Kleanthes sampled the next gourdful, and found it astonishingly sweet and refreshing. In wonder, he passed it to Tychon, who spilled half of it down his front as he drank. He blinked down at his clothes in dismay. “Shit. I guess I better wash it quick, before the stain sets.”

He’d slurred the words slightly, and Kleanthes couldn’t help noticing that he was wobbling a little as he got to his feet. Quickly, he shucked his exomis over his shoulders, revealing his sun-bronzed body, lightly dusted with short, black hair. He shook his curls out over his shoulders and then crouched, nude, to plunge his clothing into the stream. “By Apollo, that’s cold,” he swore. “Give me yours, Kle, and I’ll wash it out too. If we bring these back covered with wine stains, Miter will kill us. And then there will be bloodstains, too!” He giggled to himself. “I think that wine was… rather strong.” Glancing back over his shoulder, he frowned. “Come on, Kle, give me your exomis. I’d let you clean it yourself, but with… what’s happening with you, you’d only make it worse.”

Kleanthes shifted where he sat in the grass, tugging his clothes a little lower. He was suddenly acutely aware of the feeling of his balls resting heavily on the ground between his thighs, the unfamiliar heft of his cock draped over it, his tip nestled in the grass. “It’s—it’s all right, I can wash it when I get home,” he said. The wine made his tongue slip on the words, and he felt a heat spread across his face.

Tychon stood and turned, folding his arms, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Are you blushing?”

“No, I—it’s the wine, it—”

“Why don’t you want to take your clothes off? What are you hiding?”

“It doesn’t matter! Let’s just go on to Meliton.”

Tychon stared at him. “Something else happened to you, didn’t it? Something you don’t want me to see.”

Kleanthes’s face grew even hotter. “That’s not true!” Before he could react, Tychon had lunged at him. His older brother had always been a full head taller than him, and even as an adolescent, years before his work aboard their father’s boat had strengthened his muscles and broadened his shoulders, he’d easily been able to overpower Kleanthes. Little had changed, and though Kleanthes scrabbled at the grass with both arms, Tychon nimbly planted one palm in the center of his chest, using his weight to pin his younger brother down.

“No… you… malaka!” Kleanthes growled, but Tychon just ignored him, gripping the linen of his exomis and roughly pulling it down and off his shoulder. He blinked. “Gods. You did get fuzzy, didn’t you? When did all that happen?” He lifted his hand.

Panting, red-faced, Kleanthes looked down. The hair across his chest had spread and thickened, reaching to his shoulders and up under his chin, hiding his belly in a mat so thick it almost looked like fur. “I—I don’t—” he stammered, and Tychon took advantage of his hesitation to tug his exomis down the rest of the way. 

He froze, staring. “Theoi mou,” he breathed. He half-stood and fell backward onto the heels of his hands. “Little brother, what happened to you?”

Afraid to look, Kleanthes lowered his own gaze. The brown hair covering his belly grew thicker the lower it sprouted, covering the insides of his thighs. From its thatchy center jutted something more python than penis, a wrist-thick pillar of flesh draped over two brown-furred, fist-sized balls and stretching halfway to his knees, its turgid head lying in the trampled grass, dark red and pulsing. It throbbed as they stared, as though it knew it was being admired, and began to rise, thickening and lengthening as it did so. As it had the previous night, a powerful arousal rolled through Kleanthes, spreading away from his balls and filling his cock with need. He turned his gaze back toward his naked older brother. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “But it keeps getting worse.”

“Worse? Or better? There’s not a man alive who wouldn’t want to be endowed like you.” Tychon rolled to his knees, moving closer and watching as the apple-sized tip bobbed higher with Kleanthes’s pulse, rising toward Tychon’s nose. Kleanthes groaned with arousal as a clear drop formed at the tip, hanging for one heady moment and then dropping into the grass, leaving a string behind for a moment before it was joined by another. Tychon gasped, breathing in deep. His nostrils flared. Then, as though entranced, he reached out to touch the dark red flesh with one hand.

Kleanthes scrambled back a little. “What are you doing?”

“I just…” Tychon frowned. “I just want to know what a dick that big feels like.”

“But—but you’re engaged to be married!”

“That makes now the right time. Much better than doing it after I’m married.”

“But you’re my brother.”

Tychon curled his fingers around Kleanthes’s shaft, which was still rising, still firming, already as long and thick as his forearm. “Does that bother you?”

Of course, Kleanthes wanted to say, but pleasure shot like lightning down his shaft, striking his loins and radiating through his balls, his belly, his thighs. A giddy thrill followed it, and he realized he was already growing drunk from the wine, but it didn’t affect the fierceness of his arousal at all. He collapsed back onto his elbows, his hips jerking upward at his brother’s touch, and a clear arc of fluid welled from his tip and ran down the sides as though his dick had become a rich man’s fountain.

Tychon breathed in deep, and then reached up. Another hand joined the first, gripping at Kleanthes’s shaft, and even both of them together could not cover it. Kleanthes arched his back in erotic pleasure, the new fur of his chest rising in his vision. His cock flexed on its own, and this time the clear fluid erupted into the air, splashing down into his belly hair.

“Oh, Kleanthes,” Tychon murmured. “You really need this, don’t you?” He gently lifted Kleanthes’s hips, working his exomis down around his knees and ankles, tossing it aside.

No, Kleanthes wanted to say, but his mouth groaned, “Yes.” His heels dug into the dirt, pushing his hips upward. His cock swung with its own weight, the tip brushing against his chest before rising again, feeling hard as stone, aching with need, a long, silvery strand of his fluids connecting his tip to his chest.

Tychon crawled forward over Kleanthes, treating him to a view of his own well-built, weather-burned chest, the taut lines of his stomach. He was hard too, Kleanthes realized, much to his surprise. Tychon had never spoken of desire for men before, and never had his interactions with Kleanthes ever been anything more than fraternal. But now his face was flushed (with wine, surely), his eyes half-lidded in desire. “I’m going to put it in me,” he declared.

Kleanthes held his breath at that, afraid Tychon actually would. And afraid he wouldn’t. The need rolled through him so intensely, he couldn’t believe he wasn’t climaxing right now, just from pure arousal, just from the touch of Tychon’s chest, his fuzzy stomach, his thighs, as he’d crawled forward over Kleanthes’s inhuman dick. He felt his brother’s fingers on his dick as they maneuvered it into place, the downy hair of Tychon’s glutes as his tip squeezed between them. His cock flexed again, and his brother gasped as the hot fluids painted his backside and ran to drip down his thighs.

Tychon’s eyes met his, questioning, hungry, desperate, and, wracked with need that felt it would never be sated, Kleanthes nodded. Tychon pushed back, slowly, squeezing his eyes shut and gritting his teeth. He groaned, and his nails dug into Kleanthes’s shoulders as he gripped. “Ah, hah, hah,” he panted, pausing. “I can’t.” Kleanthes’s tip felt as though it were pressing against a firm wall. It was clear he was never going to fit. Then Tychon set his jaw. “But I will,” he growled, and then he pushed back again, and something felt like it gave way. Tychon cried out, and Kleanthes’s shaft was gripped by heat and pleasure. “Oh, gods,” he groaned, and sank backward, moving his hands to grip firmly into the tangled mat of hair covering Kleanthes’s chest. 

Kleanthes gripped at his brother’s upper arms, his eyes rolling back in pleasure. The grip around his shaft was firm but slippery, and he just kept sinking deeper and deeper into that heat, farther than seemed possible, and yet he knew he still had so much of his cock left exposed. “Oh gods,” Tychon cried out again, and his cock jerked, dribbling white onto Kleanthes’s chest, but he kept on pushing back. His knees were planted to either side of Kleanthes’s waist, thighs gripping at him. “That’s—that’s as far as I can go,” he managed through clenched teeth, and then he let out a gasp as the cock buried inside him throbbed, flooding him with slipperiness and sinking in a couple fingers width at least.

Tychon lifted up slightly, a shuddering, hungry breath escaping his lips, and then eased back down and Kleanthes curled his hips to meet him, his heels slipping in the wet grass. They rocked together, the only sounds the gulls overhead and the ripple of the stream and their own desperate, wild panting. Tychon’s long hair hung in ringlets around his shoulders, his head blocking out the sun as he rode Kleanthes, sweat drops flinging from his hair to spatter against Kleanthes’s skin. The air was heavy with the smell of their sweat, and the wine, and the wet grass.

Kleanthes was lost in it, in the wildness of his island and the wind blowing through the hair on his legs and the weight of his older brother atop him, around him. He felt like his cock was the core of him—not his heart, but his cock—it felt like the rest of him was the extremity, like he was mostly cock now, and every thrust he sank a little deeper into Tychon. He felt his climax rising almost as a surprise, and made a distant, feeble attempt to hold it back, but he might as well have tried to hold back an ocean wave; it crashed through him and into Tychon, making him arch his back, his buttocks clenching. He tilted his head back and cried out, but the cry was odd, inhuman, almost a bleat. His cock throbbed with pleasure and release again and again, and he barely noticed the itch on his legs, the strange pressure rising in his skull.

Finally he collapsed in relief and exhaustion, still panting, cock still throbbing with lingering pleasure. His skin felt cool with sweat, and his head reeled with wine. He let go of his brother’s arms and let one hand fall to his chest where it encountered a puddle of cooling fluid.

Tychon crouched still, panting as well, and then clenched his teeth, letting out a faint groan as he eased slowly off of Kleanthes. He crawled forward, his flagging erection and drawn-up sack passing through Kleanthes’s vision.

Kleanthes’s cock bobbed in the open air, still drooling white. He sat up on his elbows, staring at the tip sticking up just above his nose. It was impossible that that thing could belong to him. He watched the sun play across Tychon’s lithe brown body as he went to the stream to clean himself, and wondered, Did we just do that? Where did it come from? Why?

He picked up his clothes and carried them over to Tychon, erection bobbing before him, pulling heavily on his hips. “Mind washing this for me?” he asked. He felt disoriented, as though someone had picked up his home in the night, turned it around and set it back down again. Everything was familiar, but it was all different now. He doubted the gods would approve of what they’d just done. He stared down at his prodigious endowment and past it, at the heavy, furred balls that dangled against his thighs, the tan hair coating his legs past his knees, looking almost bestial.

“You know, I’ve sorted it out,” Tychon said. He was bent over in the stream, vigorously scrubbing at wine stains in Kleanthes’s exomis. “It must be a blessing from the gods, yes? Nothing else can explain it.”

“Or a curse.”

Tychon laughed. “What you’ve got there is the opposite of a curse. But think about it. Virility, water turning to wine at your touch? What god does that make you think of?”

“Dionysios,” Kleanthes said again.

“Right. So, you’re blessed by Dionysios, yes? A god’s blessing will be good for our whole family, and great for you, clearly.” Tychon turned back, wringing out the bundle of cloth in his arms. “There. Now we can…” He stared at Kleanthes.

“What?” Kleanthes took an uneasy step back. “What’s wrong?”

Tychon raised a finger to point, wavering, at Kleanthes’s head. “You’ve got… er… you’ve got horns.”

Kleanthes’s first instinct was to laugh in disbelief, but nothing seemed beyond the realm of probability now, and there was an odd weight on his skull. He slowly reached up to run the fingers of his left hand through his curls, and his fingertips encountered something solid and rigid sprouting from his scalp. It was rough to the touch, broad at the base, a little too wide to get his hand around, and narrowing over the length of his hand to a surprisingly sharp point. He found a matching horn on the other side, and he gripped them both in a sudden panic, pulling at them. But they felt like a part of his skull; tugging at them only pulled his head downward.

“What am I going to do?” he cried out, walking back and forth. “I can’t have horns. The… the hair and the dick I could hide, maybe, but this? What am I going to do? Wear tall hats forever?” He reeled as he felt the pressure in his skull again.

“They just grew a little,” Tychon said. “Hey, there’s no point in worrying about it, is there? If this is a gift from Dionysos, then he must have a reason for it. So enjoy it, eh?”

Kleanthes stood with his hands on his hips, trying to control his breathing. And he thought of his dream yesterday, a dream which had clearly not been a dream at all, and the enormous creature oozing sexuality that he’d been with, and the desire he’d confessed. He hadn’t even thought about it afterward—the wish had seemed so innocent, just an idle fantasy. “I… I know what is happening to me.” He looked up to meet his brother’s eyes. “I’m becoming a satyr.”

Tychon laughed dryly. “A satyr on Satyros Island. How fitting.”

“Well, they used to thrive here, the stories say.”

“Those are only myths. No one ever found any bones or—”

Kleanthes pointed vigorously at his own horns. “Does this look like a myth to you?”

“Well, no,” Tychon admitted. “Your ears are pointed now, too. So, it’s not Dionysos, then. It must be Pan.”

“But Pan is dead,” Kleanthes objected. The tale had spread across the seas centuries ago.”

“Maybe. Or… maybe he’s back. Somehow.”

Kleanthes frowned, pondering. What was the strange creature he’d met yesterday? Was it a god? Some alternate form of Pan? Or something else entirely? Whatever it had been, it must be what was changing him now. He wondered, frightened, if there was a way to unwish what was happening to him. But a larger part of him was excited, eager for it to continue.

He wrinkled his nose, sniffing. The stink of sex and sweat was soaked into his chest hair, and, unthinking, he strode into the stream to wash himself clean.

“Wait, Kle!” his brother shouted, but it was too late. Kleanthes sat back in the stream and watched a dark red current of wine flow down toward the sea.

“There’s Meliton’s. You’d better stay out of sight,” Tychon advised. The potter’s small, white hut sat sheltered from the sea breeze in a little dell filled with scrub and small trees. Broken orange pots and shards lay littered around his house along with piles of scavenge and refuse.

Kleanthes tugged at his clothing. It all fit wrong, and was still soaked to his skin, practically transparent. There had been no way to keep his oversized dick from swinging out below the bottom hem, so they had eventually settled on lifting it up against his belly and using the cloth belt to tie it in place. “I still think we ought to have gone back,” he grumbled, pawing at his genitals. The rest of the walk to Meliton’s house had been awkward at best, and uncomfortable at worst, his flesh sliding back and forth before him with every step, keeping him hard nearly the entire time.

Tychon gave him a severe look. “If you want to avoid Pater tonight, and I’m guessing you do, then we need to head back with those nets. He’ll want an early sleep before we sail tomorrow. But if we can’t go, all he’ll have time to do is pester us about why we couldn’t finish such an easy task. And I don’t think you can hide those horns of yours for that long. Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”

“I’ve tried. But I can’t think of anything. There’s a—a place I went where I think I might have gotten this… curse. I can try to go back there tomorrow and see if whatever did this to me can undo it.” And now that he’d had time to sober up a little, he realized he truly did need to fix this somehow. This body was strange, and getting stranger. They lived in the modern world, and there was no place in it for mythical creatures or monsters. Those things might have been appropriate during the heyday of the gods, but the world belonged to humans now, and humans weren’t even friendly with other humans half the time. Not to mention he wasn’t sure what would happen if he could never drink water ever again. Would he die? And what if he couldn’t bathe ever again? If he didn’t find a solution, he’d forever be a horny goat-man, forever drunk and stinking of wine. Despite himself, his dick twitched at that thought. Traitor, he thought back at it, scowling.

“I don’t suppose you could just saw the horns off,” Tychon said thoughtfully.

Kleanthes shuddered. “Horns are alive—they’ve got blood and nerves in them. It’d be like cutting off two of my fingers.”

“Oh. I see. Well, all right. Just make sure Meliton doesn’t see you. I’ll be back as soon as I get the nets.”

Kleanthes found a little patch of sunlight to stand in, hoping that his clothes would finally dry out. He crouched to watch through the trees as his older brother picked his way through the refuse to Meliton’s dooryard. After a moment, Tychon reached down and held up a bundle of something brown—the nets. He waved toward Kleanthes in triumph. Kleanthes was about to wave back, when he saw Meliton come through the door of the house. He cursed and ducked back behind the tree so he wouldn’t be seen. His ears twitched as he picked up the rising tones of an argument, but he couldn’t make out the words.

He shifted in place, uncomfortable—his clothes, now that they were drying, felt even tighter, and he elected to loosen his belt a little to give himself more room. The fabric tugged and pulled, and in his attempt to readjust it, everything came open, his dick falling forward in the open air and swinging against his thigh with a wet slap. He froze, hoping he hadn’t been noticed, but the argument continued unabated. He fumbled with his clothes, trying to sort everything with the damp fabric. His brother had tried to help, but the fit was all wrong—if it hadn’t been pinned above his shoulder, the whole garment would have fallen off of him. And even the fibula that fastened it in place was wrong; the material was cinching at his arm and shoulder. When he adjusted that, the fabric rode far too high, barely reaching down his thigh. And to make matters worse, his sandals had gotten wet as well, pinching at his toes.

He was still fussing with it when Tychon finally returned, lugging the heavy nets, each rolled up under one arm. “Old malakas sure talks all self-righteous for a thief,” he muttered. “Carry one of these for… me…?” He trailed off, staring up at Kleanthes.

“I know, I know,” Kleanthes said, tugging at his garment. “I just can’t get it to fit right.” He blinked. “Why are you standing down there?”

“Standing down… you mean on the ground? What happened to you?”

“I…” Kleanthes took a couple steps backward. Something in his right sandal pulled free, releasing its unpleasant grip on his foot. “You got shorter!”

“No I didn’t, you sheep-brained idiot. You grew! Look at you!”

Kleanthes looked down again at his own frame, and realized his brother was right. His exomis wasn’t badly arranged; it was too small for him. The fabric barely held in his upper body anymore. He was looking down at Tychon by more than a head. He stretched the toes of his left foot and felt another damp pop from that sandal. The thongs had snapped. Almost absently, he pulled his foot free of the leather bindings. It covered the leather sole of his sandal like it was a child’s shoe. “What…?” he managed, stumbling back another step. Now that he was paying attention, his body felt off; his limbs were heavier, the ground not as close as it should have been.

“Well, come on!” Tychon whispered urgently. “Get away from Meliton’s before he sees you!” Pushing at Kleanthes’s back, he ushered back to the path.

“Wait.” Kleanthes stumbled back and grabbed for his broken sandals, though how he was going to salvage them, he had no idea. He stared at them in his hand, realizing he could fit a full leather sole in his palm.

“What are you going to do with those?” Tychon stopped in his path and poked him in the chest. “And why are you growing, anyway? Since when are satyrs tall?”

Kleanthes shook his head, bewildered. “I don’t know! The guy was really large, so maybe…” he trailed off. “I don’t know. Maybe real satyrs were tall, you—”

“Kleon.”

He could feel his face heating. “We should get those nets back in a hurry, before someone sees me.”

“Kleon, what guy?”

Kleanthes bit his lip. “It was… all right, it was so strange I thought I dreamed it. But there was this man—well, not a man. It was a monster, maybe? Up on the top of Falakros Hill. And it was so—he was just… well, it couldn’t have been real, Tychon. It was like nothing you’ve ever seen before, and then afterward I felt tired and sort of dreamy, and I thought I fell asleep and imagined it.”

“Uh huh.” Tychon began walking ahead of Kleanthes. It was strange to look down and see the top of his head. “And what did you and this… monster… do?”

Kleanthes followed his older brother, the hot dirt of the path stinging his bare feet. “Mostly we talked. He seemed lonely. I think he’d been there a long time. And he asked me what I desired.”

“And you said you wanted to be a satyr?”

“No! But I told him of how Dionysios used to bless those who pleased him with the form of satyrs. I… I said that I wished the gods still recognized people who loved their works. That I loved the isle and I wished I would always feel I belonged here.”

Tychon walked in silence for a while, and Kleanthes followed, opting for the grass wherever he could to spare his tender soles from the heat of the path. His exomis was clinging to him now like bindings. He reached up to finally surrender and unfasten the fibula. His chest and arm pulled at the fabric, there was a tearing sound, and then the pin ripped free, the fabric flapping down about his waist. He sighed and tied it off with the belt as best he could, upper body bare to the sun.

“You truly do love this little island, don’t you?” Tychon said at last. “You really don’t want to leave. Everyone else wants to. Miter wants to be able to sell her carpentry to more customers. Pater wants not to live so far away from the fish markets. And I have my… fiancée.” He sounded a little uneasy, remembering that. “But you just always wanted to stay here.” He let out a long sigh. “And now, unless you can get this fixed, you’ll have to.”

Kleanthes shuffled along in the grass. “I didn’t know everyone wanted to move to the city.”

“Miter said we should let you be. I think she’s set on staying here unless you agree to go. It’s why Pater and I have been working on you. He really could use the help on the boat, you know.”

Kleanthes groaned. “I don’t even like boats. They make my stomach turn.”

“You get used to it. And you can swim like a sea serpent, so I know you don’t hate the water.”

“So everyone is stuck here because of me? Because I don’t want to leave?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But what would we do about the sheep?”

“I heard Euthymios gave Pater an offer for the whole flock. Very generous.”

“I’ve met his son, Artemon. Every once in a while we end up in the same pasture. But I can’t believe Pater would sell the whole flock. He can’t make enough fishing for all of us.”

“The offer was enough to buy a second boat. That was his dream—that he would hire an assistant and we would all work together. And Miter would sell her carpentry. It would be enough. Enough for a life in the city.”

Kleanthes let out a long, slow breath. “And all I would have to do is leave.”

It was a long climb back to the top of Falakros Hill, and Kleanthes was having more trouble keeping the sheep following than usual. Summer had only just begun, so the rams should have been better behaved, but they frisked and snorted and kept trying to clamber up on the ewes, and only a good thwack with Kleanthes’s crook kept them distracted. “Theoi mou,” he swore at them. “It’s four months to breeding season! Behave yourselves!”

He still had no shoes that fit, and instead of an exomis, he was wearing one of his father’s old chitons. It still hung awkwardly on his new, overlarge frame, but at least it kept him mostly covered. Tychon had gone to deliver the nets and keep their parents distracted while Kleanthes snuck around back, raided the laundry, and collected the flock for pasturing. Despite his changes, the sheep seemed to recognize him and gladly bounded out of their paddock and along the familiar path to the inner island. Over his shoulder, he heard his father call goodbye, and he turned and waved—not too concerned that his father would notice his changes. Age had robbed his eyesight of its clarity, and he was already a good distance away. Still, it wasn’t an encounter he could delay forever, unless he found a way to undo what had been done to him.

He was panting and soaked with sweat by the time he reached the top of the hill and herded his flock through the labyrinth of gorse-bushes near the crown. He thought it unlikely he’d see anyone else there, and if he did, he’d certainly have more to explain than nudity, so he shucked his chiton and tied it in a bundle around his crook, letting the breeze from the sea cool him and carry the sweat from his hirsute body. It really was the thick hair that had overheated him, he thought, and he noticed that down his legs it was so dense it was almost fur, with a layer of softer, finer hairs growing beneath the longer, coarse brown pelt that clad him from waist to heel. He was hardly unclad at all, he thought, though of course his cock still swung halfway to his knees, brushing delightfully against the hair there and swaying against his fist-sized furry balls. Still, that was less provocative than having it jut out and rub up and down against the linen of his father’s chiton.

He guided the sheep up into the clearing where he’d met—or dreamed he’d met—the strange, monstrous creature the day before. He saw no creature there now, though there were still signs of its presence: deep, clawed footprints in the soil, and a musky, male scent that made his balls churn when he inhaled too deeply. The cave it had inhabited was still there, as were the carved stone chair and table, and the pile of bones that must have been a remnant of its prior meals. Not a dream, then.

“Creature?” Kleanthes called out, straining his ears for any sound. “It’s me, Kleanthes! The one you… I think you might have… altered me.”

No answer. He spent some time calling and looking around, and noted that things were missing from the cave. The creature had kept wool, scrolls, and bundles of other things. These could not be found, now. No sign of them remained.

With a sigh, Kleanthes went and slumped down in the huge stone chair—which was, he noted with a shiver, much more appropriately sized for him than yesterday. The creature was gone, then, truly gone, and with it, any hope he had of halting the spell that had taken hold of him, much less reversing it. He supposed he ought to feel depressed, or at least resigned, but to his surprise, he realized that what he felt instead was: relief. He didn’t want to change back. He didn’t want to stop this. What was happening to him felt wild and exciting and right.

The sheep seemed content to browse on the gorse—though he worried about picking the briars out of their wool later. But for now, he was happy to sit back in the stone chair and just not think for a while. Everything had been so strange and confusing. And he’d had to have more “water” on his way up the path, so he was already feeling pretty tipsy again. He reached for his belt, glad he’d had the presence of mind to snatch his pipes from the house before leaving, and leaned back to play. The pipes had always calmed him and soothed his thoughts. It took him a bit to adjust to them, as they now felt small in his large hands, making him feel as though he were trying to play on a toy, but after some practice, he found familiarity in them again, and sent the dulcet tones out into the breeze, half-drifting into sleep as he played a lilting tune, a lamentation for lost gods. He must have been half-dreaming, for it sounded to him as if the notes persisted beyond his breath, or as though more than one note were somehow playing from his pipes at once, weaving together in haunting harmonies.

“Uh… uh…” A voice stirred him from his reverie, and he looked up to see a young shepherd standing across the clearing, his eyes wide. Long, curly black hair held back by a headscarf, narrow frame, piercing green eyes—it was Artemon, the shepherd boy Kleanthes sometimes encountered. He was just a year younger than Kleanthes, and typically shy and quiet, even when it was just the two of them and their shared flocks. He didn’t think he’d gotten more than a hundred words out of the boy in his whole life.

Unsure how to react, or whether Artemon even recognized him, Kleanthes opted not to say anything but to remain seated as he was in the chair, slouched back a little with one knee up, keeping steady with the tune. Behind him came the bleats of two flocks encountering each other. Both of them should have been paying attention to that; separating two flocks was no easy task, and frisky as the rams had been today, it seemed risky to let them near another shepherd’s ewes, but right now, he was naked and clearly inhuman, and that drove every other concern from his mind.

“I—I followed the sound of your music. It called to me.”

Kleanthes watched him through lowered eyelids, but said nothing.

“You’re really one of them, aren’t you? A satyr?”

Did the boy not know him? Then it was best he not speak, he decided. If Artemon didn’t recognize his face, he surely would his voice.

“I didn’t think you were real. May I… may I come closer?”

Kleanthes tilted his head a little, still playing. Artemon must have taken this as encouragement, for he shuffled a few steps closer to the stone chair. He gazed up at Kleanthes’s horns, then down at his chest, and then down to what lay nestled between his thighs. “Oh,” he breathed. His exomis jutted out a moment later, notably draped over the tip of an erection, and Kleanthes smiled at that. Artemon came closer again, eyes roving over Kleanthes’s body, moving forward one footstep at a time until he was right at the foot of the chair.

His eyes were wide with wonder. “Am I in a legend? Is this a story?”

Kleanthes lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug.

“Am I… Am I in danger? If I do the wrong thing, will I be cursed by the gods?”

Another little shrug. It was a legitimate question. After all, Kleanthes himself had been altered in this very spot.

Artemon looked conflicted for a moment, as though seized by the understanding that he should leave, but unwilling to do so. He extended his arm a little. “Is it all right for me to see how it feels?”

Kleanthes wasn’t sure what he meant, but smiled again between notes on his pipes. He found out when Artemon’s slender but callused hand settled on the top of his thigh, fingers running through the hair there. “It is fur,” he breathed. “Not some clever costume.” He tugged firmly, as though he could pull it from Kleanthes’s legs. “It’s goat fur. You’re real.” Eyes shining, he traced his fingers higher, feeling the roll and play of Kleanthes’s thigh muscle beneath.

The touch was thrilling, despite the oddness of hearing his leg hair referred to as “fur,” and Kleanthes felt his cock thickening. Artemon was not unattractive, but he’d always been shy, and Kleanthes had never thought about him that way. But now, alone on the hilltop, it was hard to think of anything else. Still playing, he shifted in his seat, and his heavy balls rolled between his thighs as his forearm-sized cock lifted off of it.

Artemon watched it, transfixed, as with each of Kleanthes’s heartbeats it rose a little higher. “And that’s real too.”

He shook his head. “I… need some water.” He fumbled for his waterskin and opened it, then hesitantly held it toward Kleanthes. “Did you want some?” he asked, and the sheepskin flask bumped briefly against Kleanthes’s knee. Kleanthes shook his head slowly. When Artemon drank from his flask, he coughed and spluttered, dark red drops rolling down his chin. He stared at it in amazement. “Wine!” he exclaimed. “But… but that means…”

Kleanthes held his breath, but the melody remained, curling through the air from the end of his pipes, richer and purer. He blinked in astonishment but dared not break whatever spell this was.

Artemon dropped to his knees, and whispered, “Pan!”

As if in answer, Kleanthes’s tip rose to hover right in front of Artemon’s nose, slick and glistening. The other shepherd stared, lifting the waterskin—now wineskin—to his lips and drinking deeply from it. Then, unbidden, he leaned forward and and dragged his tongue across the apple-sized surface of Kleanthes’s cock head. 

Kleanthes groaned in unexpected pleasure, and at that, the music stopped.

The younger shepherd paused, uncertain. “Did I do wrong?” Worry flooded his emerald eyes.

That wouldn’t do. Such beautiful eyes should be filled only with joy. Kleanthes shook his shaggy head, lifted his pipes to his lips, and played again. And Artemon, relaxing, put both of his hands around Kleanthes’s shaft, pulling it toward him and bathing the tip with slow, adoring sweeps of his tongue. Pleasure swept through Kleanthes, and his melody became happier, more passionate. He reached down to slide his fingers through Artemon’s soft hair, feeling the cool dew of his sweat, the heat of his scalp, the easy rolling of sinew in his neck as he licked up and down Kleanthes’s cock with increasing vigor.

Almost, Kleanthes lamented his new size, his shaft straining hot and tight, too large for both Artemon’s hands, too thick for his mouth, but watching the shepherd boy service a cock half the length of his arm was so erotic it made his hips twitch. Something deep inside him clenched, and a veritable fountain of clear fluid arced from the top, splashing across the ground and into Artemon’s hair, matting it. The boy inhaled several times, huffing with an entranced look in his eyes, and then stuffed Kleanthes’ tip all the way into his mouth. Kleanthes half-winced, expecting the scrape of teeth, but Artemon engulfed him with surprising skill, sliding the thick head all the way into his mouth and the back of his throat, breath huffing through his nostrils.

The sound of the pipes seemed to relax him; his eyes went half-lidded and he lowered his head, pushing that cock deep into the slick tightness of his throat, swallowing around it, his tongue slathering against the side. Kleanthes’s shaft flexed again with a crescendo of pipe music, and Artemon choked briefly before swallowing again, eyes going wide as precome drooled from his nostrils. Following the tempo of the music, he bobbed on Kleanthes’s cock with seemingly no need for air, and Kleanthes found to his pleasure-fogged amazement that he could guide Artemon with his tunes, making the shepherd swallow faster or slower, deeper or taking a break to lick, kiss, and worship the tip and plant kisses down the underchannel. With both hands, Artemon cupped Kleanthes’s furry balls, each too much for a single palm, hefting and tugging as if encouraging Kleanthes to come sooner.

But Kleanthes was unwilling to let the pleasure pass too swiftly, and let his pipes keep the shepherd at the edge of pleasure for what felt like near to an hour. At some point, Artemon surely came, for he felt the shepherd’s throat clench, his hands gripping at Kleanthes’s shaft, and then shortly after, Kleanthes scented the unmistakable odor of his climax in the air, but still, the shepherd kept at his dutiful worship, his vigor and his enthusiasm undiminished. Finally, Kleanthes felt his own climax rising past his ability to stem its tide, and he gripped Artemon’s hair with both hands, pulling the boy down around him, feeling as though he planted himself deep in Artemon’s throat and past it, down into his chest. His heavy balls lifted, the sensation of furred sac sliding against hairy thighs almost unusual enough to break through his concentration, but the music did not fade, instead rising to a crescendo, a third impossible note joining the other two, and then he arched his back, letting out a bleat of pleasure as he felt his come begin to travel the prodigious length of his shaft. The young man huffed through his nostrils.

The eruption took an age to arrive, climbing up that interminable length of shaft, fattening his channel inch by inch. Artemon whimpered as his jaws were pushed apart beyond what he’d already managed, and Kleanthes’s voice joined the music in grunts of pleasure, half-bleating as the shepherd’s throat grew tighter and he then gushed into it with overwhelming ecstasy. His shaft felt as though his seed poured through it, as though a waterfall gushed out of him, and again Artemon spluttered, white seed running from his nostrils and drooling onto the exposed inches of Kleanthes’s cock. His eyes were wide with awe, with fear, with intense pleasure as he bucked and came again, swallowing helplessly around the pillar wedged in him. 

The music dissipated into the sounds of wind in the grass and the ocean far away and the cries of gulls spying on them from overhead. In the brambles beyond, the sheep were baaing their rut-cries, carried with them in ardor.

Kleanthes thought his climax subsiding; the pleasure eased, but the seed kept coming, and once again the pleasure overwhelmed him and he bucked a second time, emptying his overfilled balls into Artemon. Had he climaxed again before the first had finished? He stared wide-eyed at the sky, his fingers gripping Artemon’s hair, as he wondered how many times that could even happen, but then the young shepherd was struggling, pulling away before he suffocated.

Kleanthes cried out, his flesh sensitive, as he popped free of Artemon’s mouth, and his cock gushed once and again, painting the gasping man’s face and arms with white. Artemon stumbled backward, falling onto the heels of his hands, his cock clearly jerking against the inside of his exomis. Kleanthes sat up a little, watching him, his own shaft sending a small rivulet of seed to join the puddle already forming at the base of the stone chair. His arousal had not faded, and he wondered idly if the shepherd would like to try fitting that cock into his other end, but Artemon only looked awed and a little bewildered.

Shakily, he reached for his waterskin and took another deep swig, only to half-choke on it when he remembered that it now contained wine. After that initial surprise, however, he readily drained the skin. He wiped his face and hair clean as best he could, though he was still visibly soaked with seed, and then bowed low. His voice was unsteady when he spoke. “Thank you, Lord Pan, for your blessing. My family will be so grateful.”

Kleanthes almost spoke at that, alarmed, to urge him not to speak of what they had done there, but Artemon continued. “Thanks to your blessing, I know our flock will be productive this year, our vines heavy, and our fortunes increased.” 

Kleanthes wasn’t sure about the last two, but if the sounds the sheep were making beyond their clearing were any indication, Artemon’s flock would be blessed with a number of unexpected lambs. Lambs whose sires, he noted a bit ruefully, were not only in his flock. And Kleanthes, too, would be taking home ewes preparing for new lambs.

And then, coughing a little, leaning on his crook, Artemon left the clearing, and Kleanthes overheard his calls as he separated the two flocks. He really ought to have gone to help the younger shepherd, but he dared not break the mystique of what had happened—surely, if Artemon saw him working with the sheep, he would finally recognize Kleanthes—taller, hairier, and be-horned, but him, nonetheless. And Kleanthes muttered a silent prayer to the gods, asking their forgiveness for allowing Artemon to name him as Pan, as one of the divine. He could not say what had compelled him to remain so still and silent; it had simply seemed what he should do.

He remained seated, his shaft finally softening, enjoying the heat of the sun’s rays on his bare skin, as the sounds of Artemon and his flock receded into the distance. Only then did he stand up from his chair, and only then did his body tighten, clenching as though it were a hand making a fist. He stumbled, catching himself with one hand on the edge of the chair, and then stared as his forearm thickened right before his eyes, the sinew bulging beneath his skin. It must just be from the way his body was tensing, he thought, but then it happened again, his forearm increasing noticeably in thickness.

He’d always had some strength, but it had been wiry, functional muscle, the build of someone who needed to carry a lamb or push a recalcitrant ewe into the paddock, but otherwise spent most of his day idle. Now his forearm flared wide toward the elbow, a muscle larger than an apple rolling under the skin. As he stared, dark brown hairs sprouted from the back of his arm, thickening rapidly.

His forearm wasn’t all that had grown; his gently rounded chest had swelled out into two prominent slabs of brawn, the delineations of strength clear even through the thick carpet of hair. Below, his flat stomach had developed rows of abdominal muscles rising like buns in an oven, stretching the skin tight, pulling his navel flat. His legs had thickened too, quadriceps rounding out to meet each other, propping up his taut sac between them.

“By all the gods,” he groaned. “What is happening now?” He tried to walk toward the center of the clearing, but as he did, another wave of tension passed through him; his thighs ballooned even larger, and the surge of strength made him accidentally leap forward. He fell, catching himself on his hands, though it did not hurt, and watched in amazement as his arms thickened in his vision, muscle rising and wrapping around his frame, stretching his skin tighter. The hair was thickening too, growing into tufts near his elbows. He groaned, watching his biceps rise more and more, the muscles now so large they nestled into the crooks of his forearms. Fat, meaty triceps swelled on the backs of his arms, bulging thicker and thicker. His arms looked larger than any arms he had ever seen—by Hades, they looked thicker than most legs he had seen, and they were still swelling with impossible strength. 

His growing chest was shoving its way more and more into his vision as he crouched there, the twin muscles squaring ever further, pushing his nipples out of sight, a deep valley forming between them—and then another surge of tension and that valley turned into a crease, the pair of muscles pressing together, pinching hair between them. He was panting now, and, confusingly, erect again, as though the power that was swelling him could not stop there, the tip of his dick appearing between the twin mountains of his chest. His arms bulged larger again, looking thicker than oaks, biceps pressing into his pectorals, and he could feel his back thickening as well, spreading wider and pushing his shoulders forward, mounds of meaty brawn rising up between those shoulders. 

His cock flexed, spattering precome across the ground. He groaned aloud again, just as his neck thickened, and his voice dropped mid-moan, suddenly unrecognizable to him, filling with a rich, bass timbre, a voice too deep and resonant and powerful to be truly human. His back arched, pushing his chest up nearly to his chin, as he felt his glutes swell and press together, his legs shoving each other apart again, so thick he wondered if he could even stand.

He crouched on all fours, panting and moaning with pleasure, the only other sound the patter of his precome into the ground. His ears twitched strangely. Little pulses of tension still ran through his body every now and then, but there was no further movement. After waiting a few moments longer, he carefully got to his feet.

His body’s weight was strange, both top and bottom-heavy, but he had little difficulty in standing. He felt both far heavier and far lighter at the same time; his weight pulled on him more, but it was easier to move and control. Rising, he found that he could not stand with his usual stance any longer. He had to position his legs apart, or one a bit in front of the other, as they barely left room for each other. Even his calves threatened to meet, each looking as wide to him as his chest had once been. Settling into position, he found he could not see the ground beneath him over the impossible breadth of his chest. Shoulders as big around as barrels jutted into his vision, cloven into multiple, powerful lobes of muscle that twitched and bulged with every tiny movement. His arms refused to lower to his sides, propped up by the impossible width of his back, each so thick that he could only just make his hands meet around his massive, furry chest. Reaching up, he found that his arms were now so thick around that they could not bend more than half-way. He couldn’t touch his shoulders or rub at his face without dipping his head forward, which pressed his chin into the swell of his chest. His neck, too, was overwhelmingly thick; twin arches of muscle rose from his shoulders to the back of his skull—not that he could touch them, but he could feel every flex and movement acutely. 

Power was barely contained within his body. He felt as though he were about to burst out of himself, or, the gods forfend, grow yet again. He looked around and guessed that at least he had not grown any taller than before, but noted with some surprise that the light was already fading. He must have been crouched on the ground longer than he expected. He took a few steps, finding it difficult to know how to move his enormous thighs around each other, but his steps felt light and springy, and he felt at no risk whatsoever of losing his balance.

Grimly he considered his next move. He ought to head home, if for no other reason than to pen the flock, but encountering his family like this seemed unthinkable. Uneasily he wondered what changes might still be in store for him. They seemed to advance every time he climaxed, he realized. He’d have to take care not to allow it to happen again. But now, even entertaining the idea made lust race like lightning through his blood. How thrilling it would be to find another young man and pin him to the ground—no! No!

He pushed the intrusive thought away even as his erection rose. He needed to get the sheep home and talk to Tychon. Everything else could wait. 

He walked back to the stone chair to retrieve his crook and untied his father’s chiton, holding it up before him. He couldn’t have fitted it around one arm, much less his torso. With some chagrin, he tied it back around the crook and turned to fetch his sheep. Leaving the clearing, he took one long look back at it. What had that creature who had changed him been? What had it done to him? When would these changes cease, if ever?

As he was about to go, a loud crack suddenly echoed across the clearing, sounding almost like a thunderclap. Curiously, he turned back and saw that the stone chair now stood broken, split asunder. From the cleaved stone now sprouted the winding form of a sapling—a fig tree, already budding with green fruit. Around it and down onto the ground and across the clearing, vines twined and twisted, reeds grew, long stalks stretched high and flowers blossomed at the end amid thick patches of verdant grass. It was everywhere his seed had fallen. He truly was becoming something else entirely.

And if his seed did that to the ground, he wondered uneasily, what might it do to another person?

He had to get home, now.

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