Richard walked his hairy, naked body through a door onto a small terrace that faced a wide lawn and an adjacent edge of woodlands. The green vista sang to the part of his mind that still longed for the jungle and an unfettered life completely lacking in human practices such as grooming, clothing, and washing.
Richard knew that, at least in a geographical sense, he standing on a balcony on the estate of Tim's family about 40 kilometers from Oxford. The jungle man presence lurking in the more primal recesses of his mind didn't understand any of that. That untamed presence looked with different eyes and wanted to hide itself in the branches and vegetation of the temperate English woodlands bordered by tranquil fields and meadows.
Richard felt his arms and hands move. They gripped the railing of the balcony. Resisting, he stepped back. "No," he said aloud.
The jungle man within fought back and urged him to grasp the railing and leap over the edge. Richard saw himself loping in a knuckle-down stance on all fours across the wide field toward the woodland edge of tall trees. He forced another step back.
"Can't give in," he said aloud in a halting voice. As a product of British boarding schools and a well-connected family, Richard looked with consternation at what he was becoming. Dark hair, longer and thicker than after the first change back in Africa, covered his entire body. A dense beard covered his face and throat. Brushy eyebrows and tufts of hair inside his ears and on the lobes completed the hirsute effect.
He needed to use his birthright of brains and civilized refinement to struggle against any baser instincts. Tomorrow, they would go to Oxford, Tim would translate the text associated with the butterfly relic, and Richard would regain the body that had been his for the past 22 years.
He heard footsteps approach behind him. He wheeled to turn and face his mirror image as the jungle man walked Richard's former body onto the terrace.
"How you get out of cage?" Richard asked with a stunted vocabulary.
Garok waved away the question. "Please, I have your intelligence now," he said without elaborating.
Richard felt a wave of humiliation as the jungle man walking and talking in his form studied him from top to bottom, noting the abundance of hair, the regrettable return of the harsh stench from his unwashed form, and the humongous and erect cock between his legs.
"Go already," Garok said. "Run free, monkey man."
Richard put his hands over his ears to try to block out Garok's taunting. "Tim use relic," he held onto his hope. "Fix me."
"Don't be as stupid as you now look!" Garok had waited a long time for an opportunity like this, and he didn't intend to squander it. "It's already too late for that," he added.
"No," Richard groaned and tried to turn away from the puny man and his lies.
"Can't you tell? You're becoming a beast-man. Stop fighting it..."
A hand moved down unbidden and starting tugging at Richard's cock. "No," he grunted.