Nick did his best to squirm off of the shelf. He did his best to wiggle his toes, flex his fingers, and rotate his head. In turn, the enchanted pieces of armor that comprised his body rattled on the shelf. His boots wiggled, his gloves flexed, and his helmet rocked back and forth. The frat house’s guards had done a good job tying him to the armor rack though, and he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m not completely sure what’s going on,” Nick finally stopped fighting the rack. His voice was still a pale whisper echoing out from his helmet. He didn’t like how soft it had gotten now that he wasn’t attached to his chest piece, “Magic stuff?”
The buff plastic mannequin seemed firmly attached to his metal rod. He nodded his head almost imperceptibly, “Normally… I wouldn’t believe you.”
Manny’s voice was equally etherial. It was strange watching something- someone speak without any mouth.
“The whole house is changing. Our frat brothers are turning into satyrs…” Nick’s helmet rattled as he talked, “…or their costumes? I take it you’re the later?”
“Yeah…” Manny’s voice tapered off into a soft moan, “Man, I’m so hard. It’s hard to…”
“Focus Manny,” Nick said. “Is this Zach’s room or the smith-enchanter’s workshop?”
“Uh…” Manny’s body vibrated for a second as if he was trying to turn, but didn’t have enough effort to do so, “I don’t know- Both maybe? Things got weird tonight…”
“You’re telling me…” Nick waved his disembodied gauntlet at Manny to demonstrate, “Why don’t you tell me how you got here? Start at the beginning.”
Manny nodded his head slowly. “Right… Good idea.” The mannequin wobbled nearly imperceptibly on his metal pole as he talked.
Manuel liked taking care of things early. Nothing was more satisfying than checking off a to-do list item long before crunch time. It gave him more time to goof off and play video games too. It did however lead to occasional odd situations like him bursting into the common room wearing a costume in the middle of September.
“Six weeks till Halloween!” Manuel proclaimed.
Everyone in the room looked up from the sports match they had been watching. Nick finally asked the obvious question, “Manny, what the heck are you wearing?”
“You like it?” Manuel spun around once for the crowd. “A Spirit Halloween opened up on my way to work. Usually it’s just rubber masks and superhero costumes with the serial numbers filed off.” He held his arms out, “I figured I’d try something different.”
“Uh huh…” Nick looked skeptical, “White spandex?”
“Yeah!” Manuel said excitedly. He turned in place, looking down at the lycra suit he had pulled over his body. It clung to him tightly, and was maybe a size too small? He liked the feeling of it clinging to his body though, and the effect of it smoothing out his features was fun.
“But what are you supposed to be?” Dave looked up from the crowd.
“Umm…” Manuel blinked behind his featureless white hood. He hadn’t necessarily thought that far ahead. He was just excited the shop had something besides ghoul masks and togas. He thought for a moment, “Nothing? I’m… Blank?”
“Uh huh.” Nick coughed into his hand politely, “There’s one part of you that’s not so blank Manny.”
Manuel looked down. The suit defined all of his features well, but he had perhaps overestimated how well certain parts would show though. He was half-hard from the feeling of the spandex, and his cock and balls were clearly visible through the stretched material.
“Yeah, put that thing away.” Dave mockingly held up his hands to shield his eyes, “Go change, you’re still in time to catch the second half of the game.”
Manny’s plastic torso wiggled on the pole. “It wasn’t just the spandex. Part of me kinda liked being on display?” He explained.
“I understand… the feeling.” Nick moaned, “I had a nice display stand… earlier.”
Manny’s plastic face didn’t have many features to speak of. It was clear where Nick’s glowing red eyes were focused, but the mannequin just gazed vaguely at Nick’s shelf.
“Did you feel like that before… changing?” Nick still felt a bit strange vocalizing the evening’s absurdity.
“Yeah…” Manny wiggled, “I went back for a muscle suit the next day.”
Manuel still wasn’t quite sure what he was going for. He wanted to be on display somehow… Like an art piece of some sort? His mind naturally gravitated towards the classic Statue of David look. He already had the pure white exterior, he just needed the muscles.
The pop-up Halloween store surprisingly enough had a few different options. The cheapest was clearly going for some sort of sailor getup? The suit’s muscles were literally inflatable, and the plastic valves were noticeable behind the suit’s shoulders. They had some sort of hokey off-brand Popeye tattoos on them, but Manuel was planning on covering them all up anyways.
It was easy enough to get the suit inflated back in his dorm room. The trick ended up being putting the white spandex suit on over top it. The air in his faux muscles kept bulging to different sides of their vessels, and the body suit was already pretty tight over his figure. The solution ended up being to only fill the air in the muscles about three quarters of the way.
Zipping the outfit up was going to be a challenge. The zipper was on his back, but there was one thing he needed to do first.
Manuel squeaked around his dorm room looking for a stray gym sock. Dang, this outfit was loud to move around in. His thighs kept brushing together whenever he tried to move. Manuel finally found what he was looking for though: One of his roommate Zach’s socks. He parted his spandex suit, quickly sliding it between his legs.
“Gross…” Nick hissed.
“Hey…” Manny whispered back, “It was clean..!”
The tube sock helped hide his, ahem, other tube. He was clearly packing, but his figure just had a taste bulge between his legs this time.
“Five and a half weeks to Halloween!” Manuel burst into the common room.
All eyes were on him again. Manuel could feel an itch in his mind get scratched. Shit, he was uh, kinda into this. They did say college was a time of self discovery.
The head of the frat immediately pulled him aside. Victor kept his voice low as people ostensibly stared at Manuel’s backside.
“Knock it off with the countdown thing…!” He whispered, “We’re playing a trick on the pledges this year. I don’t want them to have their outfits picked out ahead of time.”
Halloween was one of the better campus holidays, but Manuel agreed to go along with the plan. He did a mock body-builder flex at Victor as their conversation wrapped up, “I can still go show off now though, right?”
“Sure”, Victor rolled his eyes. The frat boy then glanced around a bit, and suddenly leaned forward and copped a feel between Manuel’s legs.
“But for Christ’s sake, buy a fucking dance belt.” He ran his hand back, “Your balls are still showing.”
Nick could swear Manny’s white plastic cheeks were getting a little red at this part of the story. Or maybe it was just his red eyes reflecting off of the mannequin’s plastic.
“I remember that night…” Nick whispered. “Not a flattering look.” His gloved hand on the shelf flattened its fingers out, wiggling back and forth, “You were totally lopsided.”
“Yeah…” Manny bashfully admitted. “I checked in the mirror later, I had no idea what I was thinking.”
Nick could tell from Manny’s tone of voice that the mannequin was probably smiling. A weird thought crossed the suit of armor’s magically enabled thoughts: He couldn’t remember what Manny’s smile looked like. Wait… He couldn’t remember what Manny looked like. Period. He recalled these events, he could picture the mannequin in the white spandex and goofy muscle suit, but he couldn’t seem to remember what his actual face looked like underneath.
“Naturally Spirit Halloween didn’t sell any dance belts….” Manny continued. “So I… did some googling.”
Nick felt a shiver run across four different pieces of his body.
Nick stared. “Manny, please tell me you didn’t go where I think you went…!”