Zac and Terry were out of their depth.
Terry knew that they should've just gone with something a little less drastic. But Zac was not the kind of guy to sit back and take things easy. And so, the two of them found themselves wandering through the crowded floors of The Cafe, a bar that they had found online that advertised itself as a 21 and up place for the gays and the straights and everything else to come and enjoy a night out on the town. But there were a whole heck of a lot of gay guys here, and the flirting was...really hot and heavy. And neither Zac nor Terry were exactly used to it.
This was, you see, their effort at what might be called "the old college try". It had started as a dare. To see how the "other team" hit the ball, so to speak. For most of their lives, Zac Halborn and Terry Gaines were straight guys.
But then, Zac got the idea when he was talking to his dad about college experiences. They had close to everything. They'd hit up the parties. Their best friend Britton was a college jock who got them into any number of gatherings and get-togethers. The booze flowed, and the babes were ample.
But then Zac's dad mentioned for a while he tried man on man.
And he recalled an encounter with a muscled, charming guy in the 90s. And Zac despite making a pretense of parental sexuality ick internalized this. There WAS one thing he had yet to do in college after all.
And so, whatever Zac got a fixation on, it so often turned out that this ended up a shared experience with Terry. He was so often that kind of friend. The kind to bring the shier boy out of his shell, for better or for ill. Any time he got any sort of an idea, Terry was not far behind. On the strength of the times when it went well.
The two of them were rather different in body type, and personality.
Zac was a loud, ostentatious and eager party boy. He had thick, curly blond hair, blue-green eyes, and smooth skin, not much hair on him. He had a lean build, just light enough to be attractive to women and just enough muscle to not register as skinny. And according to their gay friend from college, Zac was “the platonic ideal of the word TWUNK”. Which might well explain why Zac was acquiring so much attention.
Meanwhile, Terry was a somewhat chubby guy, tall and rather handsome despite it - he had some underlying muscle, but he’d long gone to pot so to speak since his hayday in high school. Terry meanwhile was a shy young guy, but could be pulled out of his shell by someone sufficiently persuasive. Once he was out and about, he tried his hardest to match the energy of his friends - which got him into the situation of being flirted with by some of the same guys as Zac.
For right now, the two of them were sat down at the bar, watching everyone else comfortably dancing and enjoying their time. Zac was blushing - and it probably said a lot that even for how outgoing he was, things had gotten hot enough fast enough to make him need to call a strategic withdrawal. And Terry just looked at his friend for any advice. Any word about what to do from here…because he relied so much, so very much, on Zac to let him know what they were up to next.
Zac for his part sighed as he looked over the bar, seeing countless men and women of varying combinations and permutations thereof flirting and chatting each other up. And here they were. Just sitting there like a pair of wallflowers, not the least bit enjoying their time despite the promises Zac had made.
“The gay guys know how to party”, he said.
And Terry looked at the wall to wall containers of various drinks and items, the obvious concoctions people would get here. Terry wouldn’t know an Appletini from an Apple iPhone, but he was curious nevertheless. He tapped Zac on the shoulder, and said, “Maybe—maybe we should just—just try like, one of the drinks—”
“That would be a start,” a lilting voice addressed them, and the two of them looked at once at a fabulously dressed drag queen managing the bar. All done up with makeup, a fantastic blond wig on her head, her dress seemed like it was semi-transparent, each layer a different color. Giving the impression that she was literally wearing a pride flag going by the way the colors showed up.
She rattled her nails against the bar, and chuckled at the sight of the two of them, “Lemme guess, boys. You’re college lads, come down to the Cafe to give this the good ol’ experimentation…and yet, you’re a little overwhelmed. Didn’t think to just try smooching each other first, or anything…”
She shrugged, “Well. I can respect the gumption.”
“I just…I wanted my first experience in this kinda thing to be—to be big,” Zac responded, blushing. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and continued, “I mean, my dad told me about his time—”
“In what? The 90s? It’s the 2020s, big boy.” The queen replied, “Things are a lot different today, needless to say. By the by, I’d love to get you fellas’ names…”
“Zac Halborn.”
“Terry Gaines.”
The Queen seemed to focus upon Terry’s last name, “Oooh, Gaines, I’m familiar. Any relation to the legendary EC Comics man?” She then chuckled, “And I suppose you boys need mine. I’m Ginger Spyce. I manage the bar over here.”
“Uhh, sorry, Ginger, but I—I uh, I don’t know if I’m related—” Terry stuttered.
“Oh boy, you guys do need a drink! Gotta get something strong into that boy to get him loosened up!” Ginger laughed and slapped Terry’s shoulder.
“Tell me about it,” Zac said, “What’s the strongest you got in here?”
“Ambitious, aren’t we?” Ginger Spyce responded, grinning and scanning her rack…of liquors. She seemed to evaluate each and every one at a glance. Looking across the array for something. For anything that might give the two new guys some stories to tell tomorrow. Little did she know, as she selected one of the higher alcohol content mixers, she had lined them up for quite an experience indeed.
“This is the Cafe Special. The mix changes every month, but it’s guaranteed to give you a hell of a time.” Ginger Spyce stated with a degree of pride. She had trusted Billy, the back-up bartender, to make something special - and this was his first time really doing this. He said he’d handle it - and going by how eager he was, Ginger was confident in his abilities.
“Pour one up…” Zac said with a grin.
“For both of us.” Terry awkwardly added, biting his lip lightly.
“Cafe Special for the curious straight boys coming right up~!”
She poured up a glistening, frothing mixture from a selection of containers in a tall glass for each of them, the fizzing, sizzling drink got the attention of Zac immediately. He watched the lime, orange and apple slice get dropped in there, and then the salt on the rim. It looked intense, and even though he couldn’t tell what was in there…well. Just the look had him pretty excited.
Before long, he and Terry were eagerly drinking down the special. The taste was bitter - but also sweet. Hitting the two taste centers of the mouth in such a way that made the college boys gasp and chuckle between themselves. Even just this much had the two of them feeling substantially better and more at ease with everything.
As the drink went down, their spirits went up.
Zac and Terry were looking back out onto the floor with a degree of excitement. Even with how much they’d been overwhelmed, the liquid courage that now filled their bloodstreams was easing them back into the idea. And it seemed something in it was also hitting a bit of an aphrodisiac note - because both guys were now squirming in place with hardening erections.
With how tight Zac’s jeans were, it didn’t take much looking for Ginger Spyce to see that her new friend was packing some serious heat in there. Good golly gosh, she thought, whichever little lady or ladies this twunk ends up calling his own, they will be eatin’ good.
Before long, she waved them off and watched the boys disappear into the crowd to try their luck at dancing again as the crowd grew in size and intensity. And as if on cue, Billy Kaaslen returned from break. His trim, tight body, thick blond hair, and light brown eyes all helped sell the twink aesthetic - and indeed, Billy was one of the more popular guys there when he was off of his shift.
As Billy checked in, Ginger Spyce cupped her chin and asked, “So, Billy boy, by the way, what did you put in that Cafe Special that you mixed up this month? I mean, you had an entire club’s worth of drinks—”
“Oh, I went with one of the Mariposa things you brought back from that time in Spain.” Billy said, hands behind his neck as he reclined - relaxing even as he failed to see the slowly widening eyes of the drag queen.
Her hands clenched the table, and she bit her lip, trying desperately to find the boys in the crowd. And with how stacked the club was at this point? That was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Her attention turned instead to her twink assistant, and she promptly said in a quietly furious voice, “You…did…what, with the Mariposa from Spain?”
“I uhh…” It didn’t take much for Billy to put together the implications and the way she was looking at him. He hadn’t ever seen Ginger Spyce this furious since her ex-boyfriend turned up.
“You—do you know what that shit does?” Ginger then realized. She never told a word of it to Billy. She never let him know that the liquor was strictly do not use. And she’d left it there like a goddamned trophy. And now the stuff in there had found its way to the hands of—
“You…did you mix in the other drinks included with it?” She had to know if she was gonna need to deal with any mental changes going on today in addition to physical ones.
“Nope, just the red bottles…just the red bottles…” Billy crossed his arms and asked, “Can I inquire why you’re freakin’ out and trying to keep calm?”
“Billy boy, what you fucked around with, and I left out, is something I really, really should’ve kept away.” Ginger Spyce stated, pacing back and forth and biting her nail - a show of pure nerves, “The Mariposa is a one two punch of a transformation drink. It’s supposed to be an LGBT party thing. The red drinks change the body, the yellow drinks change the mind.”
“You’re…you’re tellin’ me…” Billy chuckled awkwardly, “That these guys drank—what? Some kinda drink that’s gonna change em somehow? This is some fantasy shit.”
“‘Course, it’s really easy for it to go tits up,” Ginger Spyce continued, “And that’s why I was on edge the entire time after I got back from Spain. I had to clean up a big, messy Mariposa Party. And now…cuz I didn’t tell a word of it to you—”
Billy was starting to actually put things together. He remembered how nervous Ginger Spyce was that day she came back from that party in Spain. Wouldn’t say a word about it, just that it went bad. Just that everything went pretty bad. And she’d come back with—some new—booze…
“Oh. Oh fuck.” Billy slapped his head.
“And we fuckin’ Oop.” Ginger sighed, imitating his gesture. “Basically, the red drinks’ll transform whoever drank it into a body suited for lovin’. It’s based on whatever they started as, to a degree. But it’s real fucking unpredictable…which is why we gotta get our act in gear and find those straight boys. They’re gonna be slowly getting bodies suited for gay action, but given you didn’t give em the other drink…”
“Their minds are—their minds are gonna be exactly as they were.” Billy was by now realizing this was all totally insane, and that he probably wasn’t gonna get to go home with a hot jock tonight.