While Melissa went to go stalk Ethan, Carl tried on more of the clothes his assistant had left him. A pair of fitted but deliberately ripped light blue jeans, the ankles rolled into a cuff; a striped button-down shirt; no-show socks; and a pair of Nike Killshots.
“Damn,” thought Carl, “it is a good thing I hired a young gay guy. Imagine what I’d have here if it had been my old assistant, Mrs. Beeckhorst.”
He looked at the clothing. “I never thought I’d be this size again,” he said as he slipped on the size 30x32 pants and the size 9 shoes.
He finished getting dressed and went to go order himself a new, more modern cell phone. The website, as always, was slow to load and to process, and it took more time than the newly regressed teenager wanted to spend on it.
“Order complete,” he finally read, and hopped down off the seat to head to the bathroom to see what he could do with his hair.
As he walked down the hallway, he passed his assistant, Ben. “Thanks for the clothes, Ben,” Carl said. “I was expecting these pants to be tight because I thought skinny jeans were the fashion, but these are really RoOmY.”
Ben, looking at his paper, said absent-mindedly, “They’re not supposed to be loose, but I didn’t know if you were going to grow.”
Carl chuckled as he headed down the hall. He was already a hell of a hunk of masculinity… a few more inches and he’d be the very definition of an alpha male. Just then, he tripped and nearly fell. Turning around angrily, he saw his right shoe lying in the hallway.
“Someone musta left something StIcK… StIcK…” He cleared his throat loudly. “…something ST…” but his voice just cut out. He picked up the shoe, took off his left shoe, and scampered into the executive bathroom, locking the door behind him. Grabbing a hairbrush, he walked over to the full-length mirror near the back wall to try to tame his hair, and dropped the brush in shock.
The face staring back at him was pockmarked with pimples. The manly stubble of an hour ago had disappeared, to be replaced by wispy hairs at the edges of his mouth. His shirt billowed across his chest. Ripping it off, he saw that chest had become much narrower, with just a little hair around each nipple and a narrow treasure trail. The words AMERICAN EAGLE were visible where his pants’ waistband had been, with a stripe of bright pink beneath the waistband of the boxer briefs.
Carl bent over to put the Nikes back on and was shocked to find that his feet slid around in them.
“Oh my God,” he cried, “it hasn’t StOpPeD… StOpPed… STOPPED!” The third time he tried, his voice broke and the word came out in a boyish alto. He straightened up and saw the hairs on his chest retract before his eyes, as the acne receded somewhat. Just then, his pants, already loose, lost their battle with gravity and slid past his knees. Carl’s unstable body chemistry, combined with his sudden younger age, resulted in a total loss of control over his reactions. He stared at the tented pink boxer briefs, watching in horror as the smooth fabric wrinkled and as the tent holding them up shrank.
“No! NO! I didn’t want this! I don’t want to be a middle schooler! I don’t want to have to go through puberty all over again! Ben! BEN!” Carl screamed.