At the cafeteria

“I heard something about one of us,” I repeated. I stopped to come up with an appropriate couplet, then realized I already had one half-formed in my pleasure-addled brain. “This guy’s so horny constantly,” I said, leaning on the last syllable, “he makes those he’s with as horny as he!”

Ethan managed to groan and laugh at the same time. “…is,” finished Adam with an adorkably playful stab at pedantry, and I shot him a look as if I were miffed at his revision. He knew he had no standing to criticize my rhyming skills, and his eyes were twinkling as they met mine.

Billy said, “That’s obviously me again,” making a move for the jar with an easy grin, but Carter grabbed it quickly enough for the thick liqueur to slosh a little in the jar, though none of it spilled.

“Uh uh uh,” the redhead objected, wagging his finger like Dennis Nedry’s screen avatar in Jurassic Park. “You just had one. And anyway,” he added with a wiggling of his brows, “I’m pretty sure that’s me.” Before anyone could argue he took a swig of the drink and immediately leaned in and set the jar down in the table fairly hard, just in time for him to shake his whole body as if he were a big, long-haired dog trying to shake himself dry.

“It’s not like tossing a shot of whiskey,” I admonished. “Geez.”

Ethan was watching Carter closely, not without affection, as his roommate allowed himself a few aftershocks of pleasure from the yàoshuï. I was still feeling a warm glow from it myself. I was actually a little drunk just from that one mouthful I’d had. “You know, I think it’s probably true,” Ethan said, with a glance at me. “About him being so horny, I mean.” He turned his gaze back to Carter, who was grinning unrepentantly. “That would explain why I keep catching you jerking off when I come back to the room,” he went on.

Carter leaned back a little, stretching as if to show off his well-proportioned body. “And also, it probably explains last Sunday,” he replied with a wink.

“Oooo,” Billy jumped in eagerly. “What happened last Sunday?” I realized the fingers of Billy’s hand were now actively stroking my thigh—and also, that I was now bone hard. But I shook my head, remembering I’d been rock-hard ever since I’d sat down with Carter and the others. Fuck, I wanted to kiss Billy again. On my right Adam was rubbing his thigh against mine, just like he’d been doing the whole time. I bet he was hard, too. We tended to be pretty damned turned on whenever the five of us got together.

“Nevermind,” Ethan told Billy, adding deliberately, “Anyway, it’s your turn to give us a rumor.”

“Hang on,” Billy said, “I just need a quick dose of inspiration,” and with that he quickly turned to me and dove on for a quick, deep and dirty kiss that I felt with my whole body. This went on long enough to elicit a round of whoops and wolf-whistles from the crowd. Actually I’m not quite sure how long it lasted. I felt kind of like I had entered a period of suspended time, unaware of anything but our mouths melding, our lips writhing, his amazing tongue dancing against mine, his hand groping my inner thigh. The way his wildly long tongue lolled around my mouth, my tongue, my everything, I was increasingly overcome with how much I wanted him to suck me off. He broke the kiss, too soon. As I said I don’t know how long it had been, but anything short of all day, all week, all year would have been too soon.

“Ahhh,” Billy said, as if he’d just has a refreshing sports drink, but he kept his eyes locked on mine. The other three applauded, and my cheeks colored again, even as I had to actively resist an urgent need to haul out my achingly hard dick. Billy seemed to shut out the others for a moment, intensifying his gaze. “Thank you,” he said to me in a thick-sounding voice, then ostentatiously used his left hand to adjust himself even as he wrapped his right hand around my hard cock. The others just oooed and aahed at Billy’s brash actions, so I quivered but managed not to react more overtly. I might have regretted his hand leaving my thigh, but Adam’s hand was rubbing my other thigh now, so that part of my stimulation was a wash, and I was literally thrilled to have his hand on my thick, rigid cock through my jeans. I concentrated on breathing normally, but everyone was looking at Billy anyway.

“Let’s see,” Billy was saying, as if he weren’t calmly and gently squeezing both our cocks. “I heard something about one of us: he has a secret Tumblr you can click where every day he shares his 12-inch dick!”

There was general laughter at both the abysmal poetry and the general idea of daily footlong cock selfies. “Well, I know Carter isn’t 12 inches,” Ethan said, sounding knowledgeable on the subject.

“Says you!” Carter laughed. “Neither is Ethan,” he added to the group. “And he’s too dumb to figure out running a Tumblr anyway.” Ethan punched him hard in the arm, and Carter stage-whispered, “See how touchy he is about it?”

“Jordan’s out too,” Billy put in blandly, giving my hard cock a quick honk-honk. He added, “Pretty close though, I think.” I gaped at him. The others grinned delightedly at out little routine.

“And since it’s his turn Billy is disqualified,” Carter laughed. “That leaves—”

“It’s not me!” Adam said quickly.

“C’mon, dude,” Billy said. “Why deny it? Whether it’s true or not, from now on you’re stuck with the rumor. And we’ll spread that rumor gladly,” he added with a wicked grin.

“You better drink, dude,” I said. “They tagged you and you’re it.”

Reluctantly Adam reached for the Mason jar and taking a last chagrined glance around the group, as if apologizing for taking the drink in vain. He took a large mouthful and swallowed, almost choking at its unexpected potency. I reached out to slap him a couple times in the back. When he straightened up, clearing his throat repeatedly, I left my arm and hand resting along his back for some reason. Touching him felt too good for me to analyze my motivations much, especially since he was still gently fondling my thigh even as Billy carried on carelessly and nonchalantly massaging my cock through my jeans.

“You know, I think I’ve seen that Tumblr,” Carter said suddenly. “It’s not the one called ‘Adam-12’, is it?” Adam’s cheeks colored and he looked away, deeply embarrassed.

“Holy shit!” Billy exclaimed. “I’ve totally beaten off to your cock, dude!”

“What?” I said in surprise, turning to Billy. Unreasoningly, I felt a little jealous over my crush expressing admiration for another dude’s cock. Or maybe it wasn’t “unreasoning,” actually, considering we’d kissed twice already and he was, um, currently halfway to jerking me off in full view of the others.

But Billy didn’t cotton on to my little internal drama. “You should see it,” Billy gushed to me. “It’s fucking beautiful!”

I was definitely jealous now. I was surprising myself—I’d never experienced that kind of a primitive, reactive anger over a guy before. I arched an eyebrow at Billy and said, in a dangerously polite voice, “Do you want to switch seats?”

Billy smiled easily, unintimidated and without any sign of guilt. “No way,” he said, winking. “I like how yours feels in my hand. And,” he added, and suddenly he seemed a few shades more serious, “I like the way you look at me.”

I must have been looking at him in “that” way, because he leaned in for another kiss, and it was so hot and so luscious that it went on for a while, even after Ethan was reminded that it was his turn. As Ethan began speaking we broke our kiss to listen, and I figured, fuck it, and wrapped my left arm around Billy’s shoulders like we had somehow been inseparable lovers for weeks already, which, unaccountably, was what it felt like.

“Okay, I’m ready,” Ethan said, having evidently made use of our making out to decide on his own contribution. “I heard something about one of us,” he said, repeating the invocation with his customary seriousness: “His magic saliva keeps him young and built forever—and he shares with friends with no qualms whatsoever!”

Ethan said this with an eye fixed on me, I couldn’t help but notice, and I was so flushed with the inhibition-wrecking combination of making out with my crush and drinking this strange and wonderful intoxicant that I blurted out, “How’d you know?!” I was all mock chagrin from being “exposed,” but I couldn’t hold back a giggle.

“Aw, you just want an excuse to kiss other boys,” Billy scoffed, eyes twinkling.

“I’m just a whore that way,” I agreed, winking at him. Adam handed me the jar, which I took with the hand I’d had on his back—my other arm stayed firmly around Billy’s shoulders, just to let him know I had no intentions of leaving his side. I noticed it was still three-quarters full of the powerful cordial and wondered just how drunk I’d get, seeing as how I was already looking like the lightweight of the group. I took my swig and set the jar back down before the wave of mind-bending pleasure and arousal sloshed over me, seeming to concentrate around and further stiffen my already hard dick in Billy’s hand.

Maybe it because I was more a very tiny bit sloshed, but I didn’t react very much to having my little secret exposed like this. We were all friends, after all. Close friends. We’d already shared a lot of secrets over the past few weeks, and not just fun and sexy ones like Adam-12’s secret picture blog. I suppose I should have wondered how Ethan could have even found out, much less “heard” a “rumor,” that my bodily fluids coursed with some unknown metaphysical component that (among other things) kept any body it was introduced into looking 18 years old and built like what we’d now call a particularly well-muscled fitness model, apparently forever; but I didn’t really. For some reason my mind just didn’t turn in that direction, and my main reaction was how right it was to share this secret with my friends.

Ever since I’d figured out back in the mid-1800s that I wasn’t aging anymore, a few years after I’d had that brief but torrid affair with the Spanish wanderer who’d called himself Rodrigo, I’d known what I wanted: to find friends intimate and special enough to share my gift with. Real friends I wouldn’t have to have any doubts about. I’d found a few occasionally over the years, but I’d been pretty cautious.

Sharing just a sample of my spit with Billy tonight had already had a preliminary effect, I noticed. I knew it meant that he (and soon, the rest of the group, I was now sure) wouldn’t start aging again for another couple decades. And as for my cum… we’d have to see whether Billy was interested in what that might do to him. I’d only seen it happen a couple of times, but there was contentment among all concerned with the results.

“You’re looking hunkier already,” I told Billy, and it was true—his cute face seemed more handsome, and his old, loose tee shirt was looking a little tight across the shoulders and chest. I glanced around the circle. “Any other takers?” I said coquettishly.

But really, it wouldn’t be fair to hold back now that I’d already gifted Billy. Without waiting for an answer I put my hand around Adam’s neck and drew him into a deep kiss that he seemed to very much enjoy, and when I pulled away an inch or two from Adam’s soft lips Carter was already horning in. He was leaning across the low, little table, his face right in front of mine, and he was making smooching noises. I laughed and kissed him just as long as deep as I had Adam.

That left Ethan, but he seemed to be shyly holding back, despite the obvious evidence of Adam and the already buff Carter already having gotten just a shade better looking within seconds of kissing me, not to mention having beefed up a bit under their clothes—though I had noticed over the centuries that the change was more noticeable to me than to the select few I’d shared my gift with, and was less dramatic still in the eyes of those around them.

Billy, surprisingly, jointed Carter, Adam, and me in egging him on. “It’s your last chance to kiss him before I claim him all for myself!” Billy said, and I squeezed his slightly thicker shoulder to signify my agreement with everything he’d just said. Succumbing to peer pressure Ethan reluctantly leaned across for a kiss, which Billy (having noticed both my hands were occupied) decided to help out by wrapping his free hand around Ethan’s long neck and helping pull Ethan in deeper.

It was interesting to see the different kinds of results in my friends’ physical reactions to the kiss-gift. Though they were reasonably subtle for all for the guys, the emphasis was different for each. Billy and Adam, with whom I was in physical contact, I could also feel change a little through my arms as their muscles reacted, but whereas Billy, who’d been trim and tight, got significantly thicker in strategic places like his shoulders and pecs, the already buff Adam got only a little bigger but became considerably more hard and toned, his proportions shifting just enough that he seemed like a natural athlete who was conditioning rather than going for mass or strength at the moment. Carter, who had been a pretty normal dude, grew the most from what I could see, looking now more like a gymnast with his hard pecs big enough to make a crease across the front of his stretchy polo.

And Ethan, I saw when I finally pulled back, was perhaps the most receptive to overall change. His eyes seemed a shade brighter, his hair longer, and his face cuter, with his apparent age having been rolled back a couple of years despite the increased bulk in his just-a-tad-taller lanky body. His muscles, in fact, had swollen enough in all the right places that he was almost as big as I was, and his thin white tee shirt—tight before—now strained against his upgraded physique and, thanks to the modest lengthening of his torso, exposed a couple inches of his amber, hairless lower abdomen. He frowned down at the straining shirt, as if blandly wondering why he would be wearing such a thing now that he was this big, and said, “Uh, you guys mind if I lose this?”

“No,” said Billy and Carter simultaneously. “And keep it off,” added Carter, as Ethan, with some difficulty, shucked his top.

Thanks to the way the magic worked, however, they were all predisposed to accept their changes, and that was pretty much their only acknowledgement that anything had happened. Nonetheless, Carter, unabashedly ogling his roommate’s long torso, now said with obvious eagerness, “Okay, it’s my turn now?” Without waiting for confirmation he went on, “I heard something about one of us: with any kind of shirt he’s got so tired … that he’ll never wear another if not required!”

We all laughed, and Adam said, “Sounds like wishful thinking on your part, Carter.”

Still we were all looking at Ethan, who shrugged his newly brawny shoulders. “I actually was thinking about it,” he joked, reaching for the jar. He took a swig and set it back down, saying with an easygoing smile, “You know what? I’ll go with it. Fuck shirts. But,” he added, sweeping the circle with a sly glance, “It’s also cool when you decide to try new things and your friends go along for the ride. You know, support and solidarity,” he explained, adding his trademark quirked brow.

Without another word being said we all gladly took Ethan’s not-so-subtle hint (though Adam was a shade more reluctant than the rest of us), and a moment later we were all sitting around the circle half-naked, showing off our magically acquired jocklike torsos and, again gladly following Ethan’s unexpected but inspiring example, our bare feet as well. We settled back, lounging comfortably, all of us feeling a certain gratitude that these couches were upholstered in soft, cool cottony fabric and not something sticky like leather or naugahyde.

I looked around the group, admiring the view, and the others seemed to be doing the same with varying degrees of openness. We were all better built and better looking, but the nuances varied from one to the other. Ethan was completely hairless, as I’d suspected whereas the shy but big-everywhere Adam had a fair amount of short blond hair on his chest and well-defined abs. One of the reasons for his reluctance to shuck might have now been revealed, literally, since the top inch or two of his extra-wide Adam-12 night-stick was peeking up from his slacks; but we all pretended not to see it. Carter had a brush of coppery hair between his massive, pale pecs and a thin treasure trail, and Billy’s darker hair against his olive skin was, like mine, sparse but not nonexistent. I noticed now that everyone’s head hair had gotten a couple inches longer, not just Ethan’s, and we all even had a half-day’s growth of whiskers, though Ethan’s were mostly confined to the goatee area around his sensual mouth.

I of course replaced my arm around Billy’s bulging shoulders at the earliest opportunity, and Billy resumed his gentle caresses of my turgid member; but since he could use the comforting I rested my other hand on Adam’s hard, round left shoulder as well, and Adam, after a moment, wrapped his well-muscled arm around my broad back. “Wow,” Adam said after a few comfortable, erotically charged moments had passed. “We look—geez, whatever we look like, it’s hot.” I squeezed his hard-muscled shoulder, sneaking a peak as I did so at the exposed head of his footlong tool. It was drooling steadily. Adam might have been shy, but he loved this whole scene.

“It’s your turn,” I said to Adam softly. I shifted my arm so it was around his shoulders, too. I suddenly imagined I must look like some kind of prince, with really hot shirtless boytoys on each arm. I huffed out a short laugh, then added to Adam, “Keep it going!”

Adam glanced at me, his eyes lit up with excitement and obvious arousal. “Okay! Okay, yeah.” He cleared his throat and announced, “I heard something about one of us: he reacts to the liqueur in more ways than he thinks, ‘cause his dick grows bigger every time he drinks!” He laughed giddily, licking his lips as he wondered who would take the bait. He didn’t have to wait any time at all.

“That’s definitely Jordan!” Billy said instantly, and before I knew it he’d snatched up the jar and was holding it up to my lips. My arms were trapped around my couchmates’ shoulders and I barely had time to register what was happening before I was taking a large gulp of the heady grog. I lolled my head on the back of the couch a second, momentarily lost in the pleasure, and so I was only able to feel the last inch or so of my way, way thick and getting thicker boner crawling up my iron-hard abs. I looked down and stared at it, sort of stunned at how much more noticeable the growth was this time compared to my last swig. But, approaching the problem analytically, I figured that that had more to do with how big it had gotten already, making the growth proportionately more, and not any variability in how much it grew.

And it had grown a lot. It was big. Billy, the jar still in his left hand not far from my face (was he contemplating making me take an extra swallow?), was wrapping his meaty right hand around the exposed five or six inches of shaft from underneath, and his thumb and middle finger were barely touching. His hand felt so right gripping my cock I felt a flush of hot arousal course through me. My cock was emitting strong regular, pumps of precum into my cumgutter abs, slicking me and Billy up together. He started stroking, and I very softly moaned a bit, then realized where I was, and what we were doing, and the fact that Adam had just spread another “rumor” about me that happened to be true. Which meant—I realized with a certain amount of glee—it was my turn.

I have to admit—now that my dick was actually growing, thanks to the each successive sip of the intoxicating elixir and its bizarre effects on my (admittedly slightly inhuman) physiology, I was starting to slide into my fantasies. Which, you’ll remember, I’d had a few hundred years to accumulate. I struggled to keep my proposed “rumor” tame, for now, but at the same time, I wanted to open things up.

“I heard something about one of us,” I said, looking around the group with what felt like unusual focus, a smile playing on my lips (and not just because Billy was gently stroking my half-exposed monster cock). I paused another beat to make sure I had the rhyme right, then went on in a saucy voice: “He’s so highly suggestible about his own body,” I said, “he reshapes it without knowing for any cute, muscled hottie!”

Carter laughed, but Ethan looked thoughtful. Adam shifted nervously under my thick right arm, which was wrapped around his broad, bare shoulders. “That’s Jordan again!” said Billy unexpectedly, and even as I shouted “No! I’m the—” he’d already pushed the jar up against my mouth again and tipped in a swallow of the potion. Fuck!

“That doesn’t count,” Ethan intervened in a low, clear voice that seemed to carry with it all the authority a very large, very quiet man could muster when necessary and then some. I hoped he was right—I hadn’t meant to be the subject of yet another story featuring a freakish ability. Even as I was thinking this, thanks to the swig my dick grew even longer and thicker in Billy’s meaty yet increasingly inadequate hand, and I moaned, unable to stop myself enjoying the tactile pleasure of it sliding along his palm and fingers, slick as they were from copious precum. It was now shoving gently against my upper abs as I half-reclined in the cushions.

“In fact,” Ethan went on in a somewhat more playful tone, after we’d all taken a moment to stare in appreciation at my new club of a cock (myself included), “I think that since I feel like it’s somehow Carter’s fault we’re all this horny…” Billy quickly handed the jar to Ethan, who took it with the hand that wasn’t curled around Carter’s impressive shoulders and held it up in front of the boyish redhead’s smiling face. Carter was enjoying the situation quite a bit, it seemed. “What do you say, horndog?”

“Sure, why the fuck not,” he grinned at us, and took a bid dose of the liqueur, hamming it up afterwards by smacking his lips. Instinctively, having already created a kind of association, I glanced down at the very prominent shape of his hardon in his pants, and I could sense Billy did so even as he squeezed my increasingly enormous member, his fingers nowhere near able to touch now that it had gotten so big.

Ethan was watching Carter with a look of wry intensity on his face. “Now, let’s see if I’ve got this right,” he said. “Carter, look at me,” he commanded, and Carter turned to look, his amused expression stilling only slightly as his eyes met Ethan’s.

“Carter,” Ethan asked calmly, “how many cocks do you have?” I sucked in my breath a little—was Ethan trying what I thought he was trying?

“One,” laughed Carter, but he didn’t take his eyes away from Ethan’s.

Ethan arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

“…Pretty sure,” Carter said, the corners of his lips still quirking in amusement as he met Ethan’s stare. He sounded cocky, and yet—willing to hear a counterargument? We all watched in fascination to see what would happen next.

“Because,” Ethen went on in a patient, steady voice, his gazed fixed on Carter’s, “I’m sure you’re lying. I’m sure you’re packing two footlong boners in there, Carter.”

The rest of us gasped as we watched the outline of Carter’s junk suddenly swell up like a life raft, straining the fabric mightily in a massive bulge that ran all the way to his hip. The freaky bulge was more than big enough for two huge cocks. Jesus Christ!

Carter grunted, but his eyes and expression both remained exactly as they were. “Okay,” he said, owning up to the fib. “You got me. But you can’t blame me,” he went on, still meeting Ethan’s gaze. “If you had realized I had two boners right now, you’d have thought—”

“There was one for both of us,” Ethan intoned.

Carter broke his gaze with Ethan to smile at Adam, looking happy but slightly chagrined. “Pretty much,” he said.

“And what’s wrong with that?” Ethan said, pitching his voice low and saucy.

Carter’s grin opened up huge. “Nothing, I guess,” he admitted, eyebrows wiggling. “Roomies should share stuff.”

“Ethan, you’re now officially my favorite person,” gushed Adam. He was flushed and panting a little as his stared roved back and forth between Ethan and Carter. “I’m—, geez, I’m holding back blasting this huge load all over myself just from what you just did!”

“Don’t stop on my account,” Ethan said, turning a wicked grin on Adam—and then Billy and me.

“Mine either!” seconded Carter. He licked his lips, and Adam, looking first at their faces an then at Carter’s overpacked crotch, seemed to lose his battle.

“Fuck it,” he said. Hurriedly he ripped open the button and zipper on his slacks, allowing his own 12-inch pole, the subject of so much internet attention, to stand straight up and hard as a phone pole. Bending down he went crazy on his own cock, and as we watched we all felt our own hormones ramp up another level, exponentially, even as Adam, stabbing his mouth with his fat pole of a cock, started cumming geysers down his own throat.

I pretty close myself. I was doing my part to help Adam, letting my right hand drop down from where it was draped around his bulging shoulders to fondle his big, tight pecs as he came, but before I could get too invested, Billy leaned closer on my left. “Just remember,” Billy whispered in my ear, making my whole body tingle. “If you grow two cocks, they’re both mine.” I turned to look at him, and was surprised to see that though playful as usual he also meant it. By way of answer I leaned in for a deep, passionate kiss that he returned with reckless ardor, his long, erotic tongue taking possession of my mouth as mine did with his, and suddenly we were cumming too, blasting long and hard in the way that only guys altered as I and my friends had been (by whatever had made me, and now them, forever young) could even hope to do.

I was still jizzing, though it was tailing down, when at last we broke our incredible kiss. Adam was smiling a cummy smile at us, and just for fun I leaned over and kissed him, too, in a friendly but still tonguely way. Ethan and Carter were huddled close and watching us intently, Ethan’s arm wrapped tightly around Carter’s shoulder.

Billy was looking down as his now cum-soaked pants. “I vote we get naked,” he suggested. My jeans were soaking up cum too. It sounded like a sensible enough suggestion.

Carter immediately went for his crotch started pulling open the flies of his straining jeans. “Fuck yeah,” he agreed. “I really can’t wear pants when I’m this turned on.”

He happened to be looking at me when he said this, so I looked into his eyes and said deliberately, but in an offhand tone, “…Which is practically all the time.” As I kept eye contact with Carter, Billy was working my jeans off me. I lifted my hips to help. Adam quickly followed suit, and then, after a moment’s hesitation, Ethan did as well.

“Well, yeah,” admitted Carter, abashed and not looking away. A thrill ran through me. This was kind of intoxicating, even more so than the liqueur. “I tend to be pretty boned,” he said, sounding embarrassed as well as proud.

My jeans and shorts were already around my ankles now, thanks to Billy’s diligent efforts, and I kicked my feet free of them. Adam was buck naked too by now, and Ethan was watching Carter closely as he slid his trousers down his strong, mostly hairless golden legs.

“It’s understandable,” I was replying to Carter, trying to sound casual as I admired his twin now-freed cocks. He was relaxing visibly now that they lay twitching against his pale, chiseled abs. I thought about how the man’s very presence seemed to always turn us all on, dousing us with a warm wave of sensational pleasure, and the last few moments I had been wondering how we could sort of return the favor. “I mean,” I went on, “I know your skin is taut and erotically sensitive all over, just like a really boned cock—no wonder you’re so horny it affects everyone around you!”

“Fuuuuck,” muttered Ethan, casting me an impressed glance.

Carter bit his lower lip and sucked in a breath. “Just you talking about it is driving me nuts,” he said, his tone thick with arousal. Keeping his eyes fixed on mine, Carter lifted his left hand and dragged his fingers slowly across his extra-big gymnast-plus pecs, causing his lips to part in a silent moan and his dicks to flex and twist in his lap. Not only was this simple gesture now the equivalent of stroking his own sensitive boner, but some side effect of the way he’d amped up our horniness meant that we felt it, too, and that was the weirdest and most intense part of what I’d just done to him: by languidly caressing his own pecs it was as if he’d reached out and given a long, firm, lube-slick stroke to all our cocks—after we’d spent the last month boned and deliberately not getting off until we were soaked and saturated with erotic need.

“Now,” Carter said, grinning, his eyes glinting as he hungrily took in the group of hot, beautiful, ageless men around him, “Whose turn is it?”