Corey has spent all afternoon calling Nick and searching the beach, but to no avail. Ever since his boyfriend vanished, he hadn’t seen hide or tail of him. Growing ever concerned, he stopped by Nick’s apartment on the way home and let himself in. The rooms were dark and empty. Corey felt a knot tighten in his stomach.
He turned to leave, but he paused, thinking. He flicked on the lamp and strode over to Nick’s laptop, opening Facebook to see if he could find any clues to his whereabouts. No luck. Nick hadn’t posted a status since yesterday. Weirdly though, he DID post a link to a video about an hour ago… Intrigued, Corey clicked on the link, opening a video from some channel he hadn’t heard of called Nickpix.
He was surprised to see that it was a rant from some fat, homophobic neckbeard. He wondered why Nick would share this video when he noticed something odd. It was covered with posters and other nerd memorabilia, but the wall behind the man was unmistakably that of Nick’s mother’s basement. He’d have recognized the tacky paint color that underscored his teenage trysts anywhere. Curiouser and curiouser… The video finished and Corey closed the laptop. His stomach grumbled loudly.
Realizing that he hadn’t eaten all day, he decided to order some Chinese food. Nick wouldn’t mind and anyway, it might be a good idea to spend the night there in case he showed up. He placed the call, then stopped at the mirror by the door. God, he needed a rest. The bags under his blue eyes were dismaying, and his trimmed blond hair was in disarray. He brushed it into place with his hands, grimacing at the sand caked onto his white V-neck as the doorbell rang. His heart leapt into his throat.
“Nick?”
He pulled open the door, but it was only the delivery guy. “He works fast,” thought Nick, taking the food and sitting at the kitchen table. As he ate, he thought about the YouTube video he had just seen. That man was probably the grossest person he had ever seen. Corey prided himself on his cleanliness, and the thought that the messy state his day at the beach had left him in would be considered a particularly clean day by the man in the video made him sick to his stomach. His train of thought was interrupted by his stomach growling even louder. “Geez, I’m already eating, what more do you want from me?” he thought.
He doubled down with his chopsticks, chowing down on his meal until – SPLAT! A large chunk of Beijing beef dropped onto his shirt. Dismayed, he ran to the sink to run some water over the stain, but the more he rubbed it, the more it seemed to spread. He rubbed vigorously, perspiring with the effort. Cold sweat dripped down his forehead and two dark underarm stains began to spread down his white shirt. It was even grosser than when he had started! Annoyed, Corey slowed down and sighed.
THUD!
Corey spun around and saw that the box of Chinese food had tipped over on the table, spilling fried rice across its wooden surface. He rushed over to scoop it up, his sweaty hair falling in his face. But when he arrived at the table, he noticed that it was littered with other fast food boxes as well. Burger wrappers, pizza boxes, buckets of fried chicken, all spilling out their half-finished contents. The thought of cleaning it all up was overwhelming and he was already so exhausted….
He slumped down in the chair, brushing the wet hair from his eyes. Wait a minute… His hair wasn’t long enough to reach his forehead, he’d just had it cut a week ago! He walked over to the mirror and shrieked when he saw lank blond hair spilling like oily curtains over his face. He’d never looked worse in his life! And what the hell was that smell? He sniffed the air and walked out into the living room when he realized that it was coming from him!
He looked down at his stained white shirt, tentatively lifted his arm, and sniffed the pit stain he found there. Yup! That stench was definitely him! But the more he smelled it, the more he calmed down. Maybe it wasn’t worth worrying about being clean all the time. It had certainly stressed him out enough already.
With a sigh, he sat down on the couch, putting his bare feet up on the coffee table, accidentally knocking a Playboy magazine off a haphazard stack. He noticed a six-pack of Bud next to the magazines and popped the tab on one, guzzling every last drop, not caring as flecks of foam splattered onto his shirt. Now that he was finally relaxed, he adjusted his package and turned on the TV. Dukes of Hazzard was on and he never missed a chance to hoot and holler at Daisy’s ass in those cut-off shorts.
As he sat there working his way through the six-pack, the six pack on his torso began to fade away, swallowed by a layer of flesh. His hard pecs vanished too, as his chest became a tightly packed barrel, oozing sticky sweat. He belched and picked a booger out of his nose, wiping it on his forlorn shirt as his board shorts faded out of existence, leaving him in a pair of yellowing tighty whities.
His greasy hair was tangled in an unkempt mess, the bright blond darkening to curly black as it thickened. Black stubble shot from his chin in uncontrolled bursts, first a little at a time, then a lot. A patchy beard sprouted, growing and growing, his follicles pumping until it became six inches of dark, wild beard. Beer foam spilled out from the corners of his mouth, leaving the hair slick and damp.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, spilling droplets of beer onto his chest. In his V-neck’s collar, the droplets sank into his skin, which prickled, then burst forth with a dark mass of hair, plastered to his skin with sweat. Corey took off his shirt, revealing that the hair traveled all the way down across his gut, leading toward his crotch in an untrimmed treasure trail.
He scratched his ass, farted, then rolled over and fell quickly asleep. For good measure, dark hair rolled down his thick legs in a wave, dusting his feet and leaving several swelling ingrown hairs in their wake.
Corey snored loudly, unaware of what the morning would bring.