Manny the mannequin seemed to get a bit more excited as he reached the end of his story. His plastic body wobbled on his display stand as Nick looked on from his shelf.
“So… I came back to the frat house. It was still the middle of the day, so Zach was in class.
Manuel rushed up to his TFU dorm room. Zach wasn’t due back for hours, so Manuel had plenty of time to get changed.
He… wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Even if he had just overheated and hallucinated back at the costume shop, it was really hard to move around the costume. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to get his plastic hand over the zipper again once he put it on. He eventually settled on the most straightforward idea he could:
Manuel put a sticky note on the costume’s chest reading, “Unzip me.”
The box for the costume took up most of Manuel’s desk. Thankfully he didn’t need to put it anywhere on Zach’s side of the room. Manuel was pretty good about keeping his side of the room clean, but his roomie was a bit of a mess.
Zach’s desk was cluttered with paints and crafting supplies for his tabletop minis. His dirty clothes hamper was overflowing, and his school books were piled up around the foot of his bed. Manuel didn’t mind the nerdy clutter too much, but it did make things a little hard to maneuver as he got dressed.
Merlin had taught him how the costume tucked into itself. It was pretty easy to hide the seams in the outfit once you knew how it worked. There was just one last decision he needed to make.
The shopkeeper had sent him home with both plastic cocks. He wanted to surprise his room mate, and so after a bit of deliberation, he finally screwed the erect cock onto his pelvis.
Taking a deep breath, Manuel zipped himself up for the last time.
“No wonder you’re always hard,” Nick rattled.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Manny laughed.
Nick raised one side of his visor again, “So what happened when you put the outfit on?”
The room around Manuel felt like it was spinning. He was concerned that he was falling again, but no, he was standing rigidly in place.
All of TFU’s dorm rooms came with a mirror installed on the back of the door. Manuel was much closer to this one, and he was able to take on the changes as they occurred.
The foam exterior of the costume gained an unmistakable plastic sheen. It hardened into distinctive plastic plates. The joints reappeared on his body, disabusing one of the notion that there might be a man beneath his exterior. Noticeable metal rods connected his arms and legs to his body, leaving sizable gaps between the bends on his body. Manuel felt himself tense up as he once again found himself staring at Manny the Mannequin.
The changes went further this time though. Manny had no choice but to stare forward and watch as the teeth on his zipper disappeared one by one.The clasp on the zipper finally vanished into nothingness, leaving him with a smooth plastic chest.
The now-nonsensical “Unzip Me” post-it note started to glow. Manny stared as the piece of paper as it seemed to go transparent. It didn’t stop there. After a moment, all trace of the paper vanished into nothingness. There wasn’t even a hint of adhesive on his glossy polished chest. Behind him, the box from The Second Skin slowly started disappearing off Manny’s bed. All traces of Manny being a person in a costume were fading from view.
Then his bed started to glow.
TFU’s dormitory space was limited. Everyone was partnered up with a roommate, save for a few people who volunteered for leadership roles in the frat. As Manny’s bed started to vanish, he realized their room was suddenly taking on a solo-occupant configuration. More to the point, this was becoming Zach’s dorm room. Just his.
Zach’s clutter started to spill out into the room. The tools of his trade upgraded, expanding in scope from the simple mini-figure paints to entire paint buckets. Manny’s things started to disappear from his closet, becoming replaced with a mishmash of banners, float props, and other half-finished designs. A plaque appeared on Zach’s wall congratulating him for a year of service as TFU’s creative lead.
A large bookshelf appeared where Manny’s desk has originally stood. Zach’s school books vanished from the floor, reappearing haphazardly on the shelves. Even with the extra space Zach was a bit of a mess.
Manny’s dresser disappeared. In its place, a set of cardboard boxes appeared. They were overflowing with TFU t-shirt designs. The frat always wore event-specific matching shirts during their campus activities. Zach was now their in-house shirt designer. Manny was his display piece and model.
Even with Zach’s new role, Manny could see traces of his original geeky room mate in the reconfigured room. Sure there was his mess, but there was also an unmistakable pile of LARPing gear next to the boxes of frat shirts. Manny knew Zach played in a Dungeons & Dragons group. His nerdy ambitions seemed to have grow as his belongings took over the room.
Manny took all of this in from the corners of the mirror’s reflection. If anything else changed, he couldn’t tell. He was standing firmly in place in the center of the mirror, and he did so until Zach got back.
The room’s door swung open and immediately smacked into Manny’s hollow torso. He felt a distressing wobble starting to form in his stance, but his roomie managed to run forward and grab him before he fell.
“Manny!” Zach huffed. Oh thank goodness, he knew it was him! “Who put you there?”
Wait… what? Zach disregarded the mannequin and tossed his book bag down. He finally walked back over, sliding his arms around Manny’s chest. He picked up Manny like he weighed hardly anything, moving him from the entryway of the room into a corner by Zach’s desk. He gave Manny a quick look over and immediately rolled his eyes.
“Honestly Manny, who keeps sneaking in here and screwing your cock back on?” He sighed. Zach’s tone of voice was something Manny had only heard a few times before.
Zach was talking to himself.
Before he could dwell on it, Manny felt Zach reach down and grip onto his cock. It wasn’t a caress, it wasn’t a fondle. He was firmly Manny’s manhood and unscrewing it from the threaded base. Zach nonchalantly popped off Manny’s cock and rolled it under his bed.
Manny’s eyes would have gone wide if he still had them. He still felt rock hard. He could feel Zach’s fingers run over his disembodied cock, and he even felt the carpet brush over his manhood as if finally rolled to a standstill underneath the bed
Zach tossed his keys and phone down, then started to squirm out of his jacket. He walked over to Manny and slung jacket over his shoulders without comment. Zach then sat down at his desk and spent a few hours doing homework without giving Manny so much as a glance. When he wasn’t being used to test shirt designs or LARPing gear, Manny was apparently a glorified coat rack.
“And… you’ve been like that for a month?” Nick stared.
“Yeah,” Manny nodded his head ever so slightly, “All my stuff vanished. I can’t find a zipper or anything either. Any idea how long all these costumes lasts?”
Nick was getting a pretty good idea why Merlin insisted people rent their outfits before they bought them. He tried to think back if the wizard had ever mentioned a return policy.
“I don’t know, maybe we can track Merlin down?” Nick stared at the mannequin. In his current enchanted armor state, Nick was supposedly a diligent guard. He could see through a lost of the strange magical goings-on that evening… but he was struggling to recall Zach ever having a room mate. Did Manny really buy the life of a plastic mannequin?
“What are the chances of finding him again…?” Manny wobbled back and forth.
“He’s actually here tonight,” Nick rattled back. “You’ll never guess where I rented my costume.”
He gave Manny the abbreviated version of the night’s (and his knight) tale. The mannequin tilted its head, “Is that why Zach’s room got all weird after he got in his costume tonight?”
“I think so,” Nick nodded, “Not that we can do much about it. Neither of us can move.” He tried to hold up one of his glove-hands to demonstrate.
“What?” Manny raised an arm, “I can move as long as people aren’t watching. I’m just really stiff.”
Nick didn’t like the idea that he wasn’t in the category of ‘people’. He- “Wait, what!?”
Nick’s eyes went wide. Well, that’s what he felt at least. They probably just glowed brighter, “Are you kidding me…!?” He rattled, “Why didn’t you say so?”
“You never asked…!” Manny whispered back.
Every piece of Nick’s armor started to rattle, “Get me down from here! We have to go find Merlin. Or a quiet spot until tomorrow. Or uh-“
“Sssshhhh, I think I hear someone coming…” Manny resumed his neutral position.
“Oh no,” Nick eyed the door. Was this the ‘smith-enchanter’ or someone else? His helmet rattled softly, “What did you say Zach dressed up as tonight…?