"But...I just left ... you... or your body... at the medical clinic," Tim said as he kept staring at his friend.
"That's the jungle man, not me," Richard said.
"And you say that the change happened because of that relic shaped like a butterfly?" Tim asked, trying to convince himself that he wasn't delusional. He'd heard of some jungle fevers that could make people hallucinate...
"Can you at least let me out of this cage?" Richard asked what he thought was a simple request.
Tim hesitated as he stared through the bars at the huge, powerful body. The jungle man must have stood at least six feet six inches tall. Tim, although no slouch, topped out at five feet nine inches tall. Tim looked at the powerful muscles on display on the jungle man's caged body.
"What are you waiting for?" Richard felt his voice rise.
"Sure, I can let you out, but you've got to keep your temper in check," Tim said. "The guards said you were out of control..."
"I'd just been transformed... into this!" Richard shouted. When he looked at his new body, he saw only dense, dark hair covering his face and chest, extending down his stomach, overwhelming his crotch, and tangled under his arms... he even had hair on his back and between his ass cheeks. He couldn't bear to even look at himself.
Tim took a key chain from a hook on the wall. He unlatched the cage door and watched as Richard, wearing only his seriously overtaxed briefs, stepped out of the cage and thanked him. Being released from the cage made Richard feel a little less like an animal and somewhat more of a civilized man.
Then he heard Tim cough. "Phew, man, you stink!"
Richard, who prided himself in all areas of manscaping, moaned. "Why is this happening to me?"
"I'm sorry," Tim said, trying to breathe through his mouth as he stood next to his friend. "That was insensitive of me."
"You've been studying those relics longer," Richard pointed out. "Do you have any idea what we should do next?"
"Well, I think we need to secure both sections of that butterfly relic," Tim said. "Do you have your half?"
Richard thought for a moment. "I put the relic in my pocket of my pants after it broke."
Both men looked toward the cage and saw the shredded remains of Richard's pants still on the floor. Tim volunteered to search them for the relic. He bent over them and put his hands into the pockets. On his second attempt, his fingers closed on the metal fragment and pulled it out into the light. "Well, we still have this half," he said. "What about the other half?"
Richard's smeared face arranged itself into a frustrated scowl. "It must still be with the jungle man."
"I didn't notice it when I visited you... well, when I visited him... at the clinic."
Richard's expression looked even more sour as if he had tasted something bad. "We've got to have that second half of the relic."
"Don't worry," Tim said. "We'll find it. Maybe one of the doctors or nurses at the clinic found it."
"Let's go get it!" Richard strode toward the door.
"Richard, hold up!" Tim had to move to catch up with his friend, forgetting about the ever-present miasma of the jungle man's body odor. He almost choked when he caught up to Richard and grabbed his friend's wrist. "You can't go anywhere looking like that."
Richard realized Tim was right. "OK. I will wait here while you go get the relic."
Tim tried to find the right words. "Look, I can't just leave you here, either," he said. "The staff, especially the guards, are going to see the jungle man." Tim's gaze turned back to the cage.
"No! You can't put me back in that damn cage!"
"Be reasonable," Tim said. "I can take one of the Jeep's over to the clinic and be back in a half hour."
With visible reluctance, Richard stepped inside the cage. Tim glanced at the floor, a way of avoiding the bulge in front of his friend's briefs, when he saw the discarded loincloth. "Perhaps you ought to take off those briefs and get back into character, to to speak," Tim said.
Richard looked at the disgusting animal pelt that had been fashioned into the crude loincloth. "Tim, you can't be serious."
"People aren't going to expect you to be wearing Calvin Klein underwear," he reasoned.
Richard bent down and picked up the loincloth. "Well, turn around," he said miserably.
Tim spared his friend's modesty by turning his back as Richard exchanged the tight briefs for the loose fit of the loincloth. "Done yet?"
"Yes," Richard said forlornly as he let the flap of leopard pelt drop to cover his enormous cock and balls.
When Tim turned back, the transformation looked complete now that Richard wore the leopard loincloth instead of the out-of-place briefs. Of course, he said nothing to Richard, who looked close to freaking out as it was.
"All right then," Tim said. "Be back soon. You just stay here and don't do anything to draw attention to yourself."
"I wasn't planning to do so!" Richard protested. "Do you think I want people seeing me like this?"
Tim tried to give him a reassuring smile when in reality he didn't know if they had a chance in hell of getting Richard back into his normal body.