Justin felt like he was taking crazy pills. He'd just been talking to the organizer, a really cute guy, about how it was his first Pride and he was a little nervous. The organizer - Justin was pretty sure his name was Tim - was reassuring and friendly. Justin had complimented Tim on his skinniness and cool jeans, and been directed to a good spot to watch the parade. At one point, he'd turned and noticed Tim having a heated conversation with a big, burly daddy in a suit. Justin looked away, feeling secondhand embarrassment - and firsthand as well, because the "burly daddy" wasn't a daddy at all, just a mean old homophobe.
Then, Justin had looked back and seen the craziest thing - Tim dressed like a pastor, in that black dress shirt with the little white square at the front of the collar. And then, in the blink of an eye, a bearded older man in glasses was standing where Tim had been, then the man was frowning, and then he was yelling horrible, hateful things. That was such a shame, because he was handsome, and built too, Justin thought, unintentionally sealing his own fate as he stared at the man's big chest pushing against his black shirt.
"Brothers and sisters, it is time for us to march against the evil that dwells hidden amongst us. We must shed the Lord's light on the shadows..." boomed Reverend Hawthorne, and Justin felt a chill of horror go down his spine. Where was Thomas to fix all this and tell these people to leave? No, not Thomas, his name was something else...still Biblical, but not Thomas.
Justin looked to his right and saw a middle-aged man in a drab blue Oxford shirt and khakis holding a gay pride flag. The man waved it half-heartedly, and then he and Justin both looked at it, realizing it wasn't a flag at all, but a Bible. Justin backed away and ran into a man and woman behind him holding hands. They were both in suits - the woman in a skirt instead of pants, though - and looked like they'd just stepped out of a 1980s newsroom, down to the shoulder pads and hairspray on them both. "Watch where you're going, faggot," the man scowled.
"You can't call me that!" Justin gasped, and the man laughed coldly as he walked away with his wife.
"Listen to that fag. Sounds like a girl."
Justin took off down the street, horrified at the scene around him. All straight couples, some carrying horrible signs, others with American flags. It was all too much. Justin just wanted to be with his people and have fun. He'd worn a cropped short-sleeve sweatshirt that showed his flat stomach and said "Pride" on the front in rainbow font, cutoff jean shorts, and a unicorn fanny pack. The flamboyant clothes had felt so at home until a few minutes ago.
No! This was Pride! It was HIS safe space, not the straight white Christians who were safe literally everywhere they went! Justin could still see pockets of people wearing rainbow stuff, and he wanted them all to find each other so they could link up and help. A nearby spectator space seemed like just the place for him to get elevated enough to see what was going on. Justin found his way to the bleachers and stepped on them to get to the top, missing that the higher he went, the taller his socks became. He'd arrived wearing low-cut ones that hid inside his sparkly sneakers, but with each step on the metal risers, the tops of his socks had pushed up almost to his knees, darkening and thinning as they went until Justin sported a pair of black, sheer nylon dress socks.
As he took his place at the top, Justin didn't see the bleachers below him rising higher in the air - though he did appreciate the extra vantage point. The metal bleachers in the front rose up to be even with the back one that Justin was standing on, placing him eight feet above the crowd. In front of him, a square section pushed up higher still, tall as Justin's waist - and then when Justin gripped it, it grew taller along with him, as the teenager sprouted to a tall 6'3. His crop top and cutoff jeans covered barely any of his long, lanky frame. The metal structure he was gripping was no longer metal, but wood, and it bore a cross on the front of it that Justin couldn't see. Under his feet, the new stage was getting bigger, but Justin was just looking at the accumulating crowd. He was nervous - he'd never spoken in public - but also excited that he'd found a way to drum up some resistance. Having never set foot in a church, Justin had no way of identifying the podium in front of him as a pulpit.
As the crowd grew in size, Justin's heart was thumping wildly in his chest as he parsed what he could say to these people. He didn't see that each heartbeat was changing his clothes. His cutoff jeans were growing down his legs, covering his high socks. Sharply ironed creases shot up the front of the new pant legs as the fabric changed from denim to buttery black wool that gleamed in the sunlight. The ragged edges sewed themselves into perfect hems, and when those hems plopped on top of Justin's sneakers, they blasted all the glitter off and left a pair of polished black wingtips on his feet. The waist of the new trousers moved higher, elongating the fly to nine inches. Above the fly, Justin's unicorn fanny pack was tightening around his navel, its straps hardening into black leather that found its way under the belt loops of his pants. The fanny pack's pouch hardened into a big silver buckle, and as the zipper dissipated, it spat out a microphone that Justin caught in his hand. Justin was happy that he wouldn't have to yell.
"Testing...testing..." his high voice rang out through pairs of massive speakers that had planted themselves along the stage. "Can you all hear me out there?"
The crowd yelled that yes, they could hear him. Justin smiled. His braces sprayed off and pinged all over the stage as his teeth were replaced with a set of giant, too-white veneers. "I said, can you hear me out there?" he lisped.
"Yes!" the crowd roared.
A white shirt collar burst up like a cone around Justin's neck, pushing his chin higher. The collar was starched like cardboard and tall enough to require two buttons, both of which were undone. Another button sprouted below it over Justin's chest, as the word "Pride" swirled around like water going down a drain. Another button, and another - the bottom of Justin's crop top descended like a curtain over his stomach, tucking itself tightly into his high-waisted pants. From the base of the microphone in his hand came a piece of white that wrapped around his wrist like a mist, before solidifying into an obnoxiously large French cuff clasped with a gold crucifix cufflink. Out from it swirled more white fabric, twirling around Justin's trembling arm to sew itself to his shirt at the shoulder. The same action happened on his other arm, and the points of his open collar leapt even wider to make his collar more prominent as his dress shirt completed. Justin felt a weight hit his left wrist, and shook it to see a heavy gold watch peeking out from his huge cuff.
The realization that he was in a white dress shirt - a very elegant and elaborate one, at that - and black suit pants should have alarmed Justin. And it did, somewhat. But he also recognized that he was in front of a very large crowd of people now, and he needed to look presentable. Plus, these clothes were beautiful! His parents would be so proud to see him onstage looking handsome. The thought made Justin stand taller and widen his stance, and as he planted his feet, his shoulders goosed out wider, his chest grew out in front of him. Firm mounds of muscle took root beneath the buttons of his shirt, growing into a pair of pecs that Justin would find mouthwatering on another man. As he raised the microphone to his mouth, his pecs swelled further out and knocked into his arm, sending reverberations through it as his biceps grew thick and burly in his sleeves. The next button on his shirt came undone as he said, "This is insanity, isn't it?"
The crowd whooped in agreement, which Justin found comforting. He was glad they weren't all homophobes like Reverend Hawthorne and his flock. "We need to fight these people!" Justin announced to more cheers, his Adam's apple enlarging out through his open collar as his voice dropped deeper...louder... "They don't deserve our time or our attention!"
Justin's new thundering baritone voice really kept the crowd engaged. He paced the stage like a caged animal as black fabric crept over his beefy shoulders and formed into tailored jacket with peak lapels, completing his suit. The snug fit kept him standing straight and tall, even as his body continued to get heavier. Justin's physique was hulking and hefty, enough to make the stage creak as he walked. He only realized something was amiss when he felt his shirt buttons digging into his new lifter's gut as it swelled out in front of him, a big orb of muscle and fat. Justin looked down at it - and his expensive suit - in surprise. "They...they..." his voice faltered. "...they are abominable..." That was a good word. He smacked his podium. "Abominable!" The crowd whooped. Justin noticed how big his hand was as he smashed it into the podium. "Abominable faggots!" Spit sprayed from his mouth.
The crowd roared their approval as Justin realized what he'd just said. He raised his microphone to correct his error. "The Bible plainly says that sodomites are wicked sinners before the Lord exceedingly! And that they are abominable to God!" The words leeched into his brain and shook it mercilessly. A gold chain settled around his bulging neck, the cross pendant on it resting right between his pecs, displayed through the open second button of his dress shirt. Justin's whole world was changing now. He kept trying to preach love, but hatred was spewing out of him, transforming him. Having already grown his body to manhood, it went to work on his face, widening his jaw into a cinderblock and growing his angelic chin into a big, brutish box. Bags settled in under his eyes, which darkened to hazel. Above them, Justin's over-tweezed eyebrows blew into thick unmanaged brushes.
The small gold hoop Justin had gotten put in his right earlobe for his 16th birthday detached and flipped up to rest inside his ear. It hardened into flesh-colored plastic as the roars of the crowd got much louder for Justin, who began to adjust to his new hearing aid. Its presence was enough to make the boyish features finish hardening, his skin tanning and wrinkling. Justin's mouth drooped into a permanent frown, like the one he'd seen on Thomas - instead of worrying about his growing homophobia, he was far more concerned about all the new memories hitting him, memories a 17 year old twink shouldn't have. School, yes, but also marriage...babies...grandbabies? And a big house, multiple big houses, so many properties that sometimes he forgot what all owned-
Justin's hair grew longer on his head, slicking itself back against his scalp with Gospel pomade, the temples receding as the whole hairdo turned white. To the crowd, Justin was now a 72-year-old man. His age was even palpable in his voice, which had roughened into a gruff, mean bass. The sound of it reverberated through Justin's skull, echoing his transformation back at him, reminding him of who he'd been minutes before. Like an overloaded speaker, it blew out the memories of gay Justin, resetting him as straight, then it went to work on the rest of his morals and memories - the decades filled in, even as Justin tried to fight them. His confusion made him weak, and allowed a tidal wave of revulsion to wash over him and take the old identity of Justin with it, converting him fully into an icon of the Christian conservative movement named Ernest Sullivan. Aftershocks shot through the crowd as their movement gained a new leader. Ernest's name wrote itself in history books, and in the mind of Reverend Thomas Hawthorne, who'd been mentored by Reverend Sullivan since seminary.
The crowd could see the big man puff up with cruel arrogance, goaded by his limitless power and influence. Ernest sneered down at them, his gold wedding band catching the sunlight. His too-white, too-large veneers flashed as he caught sight of the Hawthornes and the Gospels across the street, and he waved to them before going back to his sermon condemning who he'd been moments before.