Tumbled

by Cris Kane

I knew it was time for a trip to the laundromat when I entered my apartment and it smelled like the litter box needed to be emptied. You see, I don't own a cat.

I stripped off my t-shirt and jeans, which were soaked through with sweat after my shift washing dishes at the restaurant, and tossed them into the hamper with my other dirty clothes. Man, did they reek. The only reasonably clean clothes I had left were some hole-ridden cargo shorts and a single black sock. I pulled on the shorts, with no choice but to go commando under them, and slipped a pair of flip-flops onto my bare feet. I stuffed my laundry into a plastic basket and grabbed a hefty fistful of quarters from the change bowl beside my bed.

Of all the things I disliked about my dismal little apartment, and there were plenty, the worst was that it had no washer and dryer. That meant I had to lug my clothes nearly a mile to the nearest laundromat, the Wash-N-Dri, which gave me one more excuse for putting off laundry day until it was absolutely unavoidable. I guess it was good exercise for what few muscles I had on my scrawny-ass frame, but by about block three, I was wishing to hell I owned a car. Not much chance of that on a dishwasher's salary.

When I got to the laundromat, it was empty as usual. If you're already feeling lonely or depressed, do not go to an empty laundromat. It will not cheer you up. I did notice that a couple of loads of clothes were tumbling in two of the dryers, but the place was otherwise silent. I packed all of my clothes into a single machine, bought one of those tiny boxes of detergent and dumped it in.

After starting the machine, I browsed the establishment's extensive library of three-year-old tabloids (oh, no, Tom and Katie might break up!) and Spanish-language want ads. I bought a bag of Skittles from the vending machine and wandered in circles around the place. Night had fallen, and the fluorescent lights of the laundromat were turning all of the plate-glass windows into floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Everywhere I turned, I saw reflections of my emaciated self. I swear I ought to be able to see through my pale skin and track the path and color of each Skittle as it passed through my skinny body. I had the faintest of abs, but only because I had even less body fat than muscle tone. No matter how much food I ate, I never put on a pound, which I know is a problem most people would love, but I was sick of being such a featherweight.

I knew I had my merits. Chicks really seemed to like my thick black hair and my deep brown eyes and what they told me were my "kissable" lips, but I always became totally self-conscious whenever the moment of truth arrived and I had to take off my shirt. I generally wore loose clothes to disguise my painful thinness and lack of muscles, but I'm sure I wasn't fooling anyone into thinking I was concealing The Rock's body under those baggy sweatshirts and camo pants. I had managed to have a few short-lived girlfriends, but I wasn't exactly Mr. Experience. I certainly wasn't beating them off with a stick. I was mostly just beating off.

As I studied my wimpy reflection in the window, I suddenly saw an amazingly jacked body emerging from within it. I thought I was tripping until I realized this totally built jock was actually outside, walking toward the window and staring straight at me. He gave me an amused grin and a friendly nod, and I withered inside. I took a seat on a hard plastic chair, embarrassed beyond belief that this guy had caught me checking out my puny excuse for a physique. The dude entered and walked over to the only dryers in motion, opening one to check the dampness of his clothes. He shut the door and restarted the tumbling.

"Howzitgoin?" The guy's voice boomed through the empty laundromat as he boosted himself with his triceps and planted his ass on my washing machine. I didn't want the guy to think I was scoping him out, since I'm not into dudes, but he was so ripped, it was hard not to glance his way. His powerfully sculpted arms emerged like pythons from his black sleeveless tee. His bulging quads were straining the seams of his running shorts, and his diamond-cut calves dangled down the front of the washing machine. A guy must need to spend hours in the gym every day to get into that kind of shape. I felt like apologizing for daring to be shirtless in the presence of such a superior specimen.

I fished a few Skittles out of the bag and asked,"Want a Skittle?", which I'm convinced is the lamest question ever asked.

"Nah. I cut sugar out of my diet, and I'm pretty sure Skittles are like 300% sugar."

I felt like I'd just offered a pork chop to a Hasidic vegan. I tried to joke it off. "Yeah, I'm trying to lay off the sugar too. I mainly eat them for the artificial coloring."

Fortunately, the guy laughed. "I remember when I used to eat anything I wanted. Believe it or not, not that long ago, I was a skinny fuck just like you."

It was hard to believe that this tower of power had ever resembled me in any way. "So all that's keeping me from looking like you is Skittles?"

"You'd be surprised how the littlest things can cause big changes." He ran his eyes over my bony body. "Yeah, you definitely got potential."

I'm pretty sure my entire body was blushing. Not like I'm any kind of expert, but he didn't strike me as gay. Even if he was, he must be able to find hotter guys to hit on than measly little me. I looked up at him doubtfully, and he was staring at me with a kindly smile that was more Santa Claus than lecherous horndog.

His dryers had stopped turning, so he hopped to the floor and walked over to unload his clothes into a duffelbag. Slinging the stuffed bag over his shoulder, he exited with a wave, calling back to me, "Good luck, big guy." Big guy. Yeah, right.

When my washer's spin cycle ended, I unloaded it and carried my wet clothes to one of the dryers the guy had been using. I opened it and discovered that he had left behind a pair of his boxers, a jazzy pattern with surfers and palm trees against a light blue background. I grabbed the shorts and ran outside, hoping to catch up to him, but he was too far gone.

I put my clothes into the dryer and tossed the guy's shorts in the lost-and-found basket, but for some reason I couldn't keep my eyes off them. I'd always been a y-front guy, plain old tighty-whities, so I'd never worn any underwear as busy as these. They had a lot of personality, something I could definitely use more of. If nothing else, they'd offer girls a distraction from looking at my body. In retrospect, it seems so out of character for me, but I had an irresistible compulsion to see how I would look wearing them.

I snuck back over to the lost-and-found and snatched up the boxers. Not sure why I felt like I had to do it surreptitiously. It's not like anyone was around to see what I was doing. I ducked behind the heavy-duty washers, dropped my cargos to the floor, and slid the boxers up my bare legs. I was surprised how snug the elastic waistband was on my 28-inch waist. It must really have been stretched to the max to fit on the other guy.

There was something weirdly erotic about wearing someone else's clothes. When I checked my reflection in the windows, I definitely liked the way the shorts looked, and I decided in an instant that they would be the building block of a new image for me. I wouldn't be boring white-undie guy any more, I'd be cool goofy-boxer guy. But whoever it was that said "Clothes make the man" was a big lying asshole. Hoisting my arms to flex my miniature muscles, the discrepancies between my body and the other guy's couldn't have seemed more immense.

Depressed, I sat down and poured out a palmful of Skittles. I stared at the colorful candies and they suddenly didn't seem so appetizing. Maybe the guy was right. Maybe my body did have potential if I would just bother to work at it. I slid the candy back into the bag and decided, what the hell, I'd do a few push-ups to kill the time while I waited for my clothes to dry.

My first push-up was rickety as my arms strained to raise me from the floor. I practically collapsed back to the linoleum, but the second one went a little better, and the third one better still. By the time I reached ten reps, I was feeling a buzz, like what I imagined a runner's high must be. My closest equivalent was the way you feel after powering down a whole bag of Skittles. How pathetic was it that merely doing ten push-ups could be such a jolt to my system. The guy whose shorts I was now wearing could probably do a hundred push-ups in his sleep.

I stood up, my legs wobbly. Like a rat reaching the end of a maze, I sought my reward pellet. Reaching for the Skittles bag, I caught a glimpse of myself in the window and thought my arms actually looked slightly beefier after just that minimal exercise. My pecs looked a bit heavier and better defined too. It had to be wishful thinking, right? Still, my body was definitely pulsing with energy that needed an outlet. As long as I was in this mood, why not do a few sit-ups? They had to be healthier for me than more Skittles.

I sat on the cold floor, clasped my hands behind my head and began the exercise. Why had these always been so tough for me before? Back in high school gym class, I could barely do ten sit-ups in a row. Now, before I knew it, I had powered through fifty. When I was done, I leapt to my feet, eager to check myself out. Incredibly, my faint abs were becoming more pronounced, and my shoulders and biceps were pumped even bigger than before, stretching my skin as if it was having trouble containing their power. My skin even looked a little browner, rather than the sickly green tinge that the fluorescent lights had been giving it. Either I was going insane or something insane was actually happening to me.

I felt a restlessness continuing to build inside of me and I needed to burn it off. I kicked off my flip-flops and sped out the door, figuring I would just jog down the block and back, but once I hit a comfortable pace, I felt compelled to keep going. With each long stride, my legs seemed capable of greater propulsion. Before I knew it, I was halfway home but not fatigued or short of breath in the least. Still, I was half a mile from the laundromat, wearing nothing but someone else's underwear, so I figured I'd better turn around.

My little jaunt brought more changes to my entire body. My pale skin was now deeply tanned. My thighs had expanded so much that I imagined I now filled the boxers as well as their true owner did. I had felt my cock growing hard during my run as it bounced against the fabric of the boxers. I sneaked a peek down there and was amazed to see it was as long as I had ever seen it, yet still only semi-hard. I allowed myself to stroll around with my cock tenting my shorts, figuring I should wait until I got home before taking care of that problem (if you consider that a problem). I bent my veiny arm and my biceps jumped up, smooth and hard like a chunk of solid marble trapped under my skin. My thick black hair was still thick and black, but my face was almost totally transformed. My dark eyes had become narrower and even more impenetrable and mysterious. My lips were hopefully still "kissable" but looked less plump and more masculine, and I now had the chiseled jawline and strong, straight nose of a model.

The laundromat was silent and my clothes had stopped tumbling. I thought the dryers seemed lower than before, until I realized that I had actually grown by at least a few inches. It was inconceivable how much my body had changed in the time it took to dry one load of clothes. I slapped my face to wake myself up, but it didn't work -- and it hurt like hell, because I was a lot stronger than I used to be.

I was folding my clothes and placing them in the basket when a girl entered the laundromat. She wasn't making any particular effort to look good -- no makeup, hair in a scrunchie, even baggier sweats than I usually wore -- yet she was still stunning. Dirty blond hair, a petite nose and what sure appeared to be "kissable" lips. Despite her loose wardrobe, it was obvious that she was on the slim side of shapely underneath. Unfortunately, she looked like the kind of girl who only dated guys like the one who'd left behind these awesome boxers.

But wait, I thought, now I WAS a guy like that. Unless it was all an optical illusion or an LSD trip, I had become a total muscle stud. If only I knew what to say to her.

Hyper-aware of my ever-enlarging boner, I grabbed my cargos and pulled them up my legs, barely getting them to buckle thanks to my swollen cock and what I now discovered were two bigger and firmer butt cheeks. I rummaged through my clothes in search of a shirt that would still fit. I located a tank top which used to hang comically on my malnourished torso. Now when I pulled it on, it conformed to my every curve and stopped just short of my belly button.

Before I could think of how I would approach the girl, I heard her soft voice behind me. "Sorry to bother you, but the bill changer is broken. I don't suppose you have change for a five?"

I spun around and she was standing right behind me with a hopeful smile. I gazed into her green eyes, which were practically hypnotic up close. "Why, sure. I am the king of change," I said, sounding like a nitwit but discovering that I was now a nitwit with a noticeably deeper voice. I could barely squeeze my thick fingers into the now tight pocket of my cargos and, when I extracted a pile of quarters, most of them clattered to the floor. So much for looking cool.

She and I knelt down to pick them up, bumping heads as we did so. We both apologized simultaneously, then laughed simultaneously. When we both grabbed the same quarter and her hand touched mine, I felt sure my cargos would burst apart from the pressure of my hardening dick, but I kept my shit together and just smiled at her.

Even though my clothes were done, I hung around all the way through her wash and her dry. Then I helped her fold her clothes and carry them back to her apartment. Her place was even farther from the laundromat than mine, but toting this weight for more than a mile felt like nothing to my new muscles. And I did all of this without saying anything absolutely stupid. I learned that her name was Jenna and she gave me her number. We made plans to get together for coffee. Once I got home, I was exhausted from the evening's activities and collapsed on my bed fully dressed, unable to work up the energy to jack off.

In the morning, I woke well-rested and still packing a boner for the record books. Barefoot, I padded heavily toward the bathroom and checked my reflection. I discovered that all of the previous night's changes were intact. If anything, I had been refined even further in my sleep. I was getting ready to strip down for a shower when a sudden thought hit me: what would happen if I took off the boxers? Would all of my changes be undone? If so, would they return if I put the boxers back on? Or was this amazing transformation a one-time deal? I couldn't risk it. I decided to give myself a sponge bath and leave the boxers in place, only lowering them to take care of my raging hard-on.

When I showed up for work, absolutely no one at the restaurant recognized me. In the split second before I was going to explain to the boss who I was, some tiny voice in my brain stopped me. I hadn't liked that job to begin with. This was my perfect excuse to weasel out of it. They'd write the old me off as some flake who quit without giving notice, and I could see whether my new appearance opened any doors that had previously been closed to me. I got my answer after my first interview. Most weekdays, you can now find me standing out front of the Abercrombie and Fitch store in the Westfield Mall. I'm not getting rich, but it sure beats scrubbing pots.

Jenna did meet me for coffee. And dinner two days later. And a movie followed by drinks the night after that. Turned out we had lots of common interests, but I never would have had the gumption to talk to her long enough to discover that if I had still been in my old body. I knew she was turned on by my looks, but she also seemed to appreciate the things about me that hadn't changed as much as the aspects that had. Oh, and apparently my lips were still "kissable".

Still, I almost blew everything when Jenna and I finally got into bed and she caught a whiff of my boxer shorts. "Oh my god," she said, "when's the last time you washed those?" I was struggling to think of a better, more plausible answer than the true one, but before I could say a thing, Jenna was wriggling the shorts down my legs. In a panic, I told her to stop. She looked at me like I was nuts and continued to pull down. Frantic, I pushed her, sending her toppling off the side of the bed.

I scrambled over to make sure she was okay, apologizing repeatedly as I did. She was on the floor, leaning back on one elbow and laughing, the boxers clutched in her hand, held as far from her nose as possible. "What is your deal? You act like these are a second skin!"

I looked down at myself, now bare from the waist down. The transformation wasn't reversing. I was still the new me. I was relieved. Sure, I could have survived going back to the old me, and maybe Jenna would still like me whatever I looked like, but given the choice...

Jenna ceremoniously tossed the boxers in my clothes hamper, where they stayed until the next washday. Still not knowing how the magical transformation worked, I had considered never washing them, but they just stank too much. Turned out they cleaned up perfectly fine and my body remained unchanged, so they went into rotation with the other funky undies I'd been buying lately. I was even wearing them the night I took Jenna out to dinner at my old restaurant. My jeans were riding low, so the waistband of the shorts was visible.

When Jenna excused herself to the restroom, I heard a voice behind me say, "Hey, I recognize that underwear."

I turned around and saw the guy from the laundromat. He stepped back, puzzled. "Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else."

"I was." I grinned.

The guy studied my features, amazed by how much I had changed. "That is remarkable. I assume you're happy?"

"Absolutely. You gotta tell me where you got those shorts."

The guy shrugged. "I just found them mixed in with my laundry one day. Something compelled me to try them on. Never thought they'd fit me, but I really grew into them. Glad they worked for you too." He clapped me on the back, then left the restaurant arm in arm with another studly guy.

Jenna returned to the table, curious about the guy I'd been talking to. I told her he was just a friend, and that answer satisfied her. By that point in our relationship, she had ample proof that I was straight.

Soon after that, Jenna and I moved into a new apartment together. One that had its own washer and dryer. No more schlepping to the laundromat. However, I did go back to the Wash-N-Dri one last time.

As usual, the place was nearly empty. Just one chunky guy plopped into a plastic chair, reading an old tabloid ("Exclusive Royal Wedding Pix!") and gobbling down a Snickers. When he gallumphed to the bill changer, behind his back I opened the lid of his washer and tossed in the boxers.

The bill changer was still broken, so the guy turned to me and asked, "Hey, can you help me? I could use some change."

"I just gave you some," I said, and I breezed out the door. He was confused then, but I knew he would thank me later.