Chapter 3
Shane’s brain finally started to work again as he was driving downtown toward the mall. “Whistle?” he said abruptly. The boy in his passenger’s seat looked over at him. he'd been staring in wonder at the passing view, but now his crystalline eyes came to rest on Shane’s profile. “What is it?” he asked.
“Uh…I’ve been thinking. And there are a lot of questions I need answers to, starting with this one. Now that we’re…whatever we are, are we going back to your world or dimension together?”
Whistle sighed softly. “No, Shane. I wish that I could, but one of the drawbacks of the Vortex is that it is a one-way door. I can’t ever go back to my home,” he said sadly.
“I’m sorry,” Shane said, feeling a streak of pity for the shapeshifter.
Whistle conjured up a smile for him. “It’s all right, Shane. As long as I can be with my Lamhulae, I can accept the fact that I can’t go back. We’ll raise our little one here on this world of yours.”
Reminded of the ‘baby’, Shane frowned a bit. “Listen, I’m going to have some trouble over this kid with my sister. She’s going to want to know where he? She? It? Came from, and when she sees another guy she’s not going to believe that YOU’RE going to have my baby. What do I tell her?”
Whistle’s brows drew together as he thought. He looked decidedly cute that way. Shane hurriedly looked ahead again at the road as the transdimensional traveler commented slowly: “From your memories I see that this world has a system wherein adults take in little ones whose parents have expired. This is so, yes?”
It took Shane a moment to realize what he was talking about. “Adoption, yeah. I suppose I could tell Amanda that I’m thinking of adopting a baby. But she knows that I’d never do that without a long-term partner. And she’s never seen you before this, so I won’t be able to tell her that we’ve been dating for awhile. I always introduce her and Matt to my boyfriends pretty much right away. She’d not only be hurt if I told her that I’d been with you for awhile without telling her - and she wouldn’t believe it either.”
“Perhaps…this strange thing on the devices you call computers…where people meet each other and come together over long distances? Could you not tell your sibling that you met me in this way?”
Shane blinked. “On-line dating? Yeah, that could work. And I suppose I could tell her that you and I had been getting to know each other for awhile long distance, and that this is the first time that we’d met in person. Which is sort of the truth anyway. But there is one big drawback to all of this…” he glanced at his passenger and gulped. “Whistle you look like you’re about fifteen. Amanda is going to think that I’m a pedophile.”
Whistle cocked his head. “This form is wrong?” he asked anxiously. “You don’t like it?”
“Lord, no! I really like it, which is the problem,” Shane remarked fervently. “Whistle, on this world that form makes you look like you’re still pretty much a child. There are laws against adults having sex with kids, and for good reason. I’m not sure I can explain ‘statutory rape’ to you, but even if my sister doesn’t wig out, somebody else will. And once they call the cops they’ll realize that you don’t actually exist anywhere – that you have no birth certificate, no social security number, nothing. They’ll take you away, and put you in foster care while they try to figure out why there’s no paper trail on you and just who you actually are. I’d never see you again – if they don’t throw me into jail. That would be a pretty bad scenario.”
“Oh! I understand! This form is too young!”
“Yeah,” Shane agreed. “Because besides everything else, it really disturbs me that you seem to think that my perfect guy is someone only slightly older than my nephew. I’m not into kids, or at least I never have been.”
Whistle touched his arm, and he drew in a sharp breath at just that slight pressure. “Do not fear, Shane. I can do something about this with a little help from you.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, glancing at the slim boy before turning his attention to the road ahead once more.
“You will see. I’ll wait until I have your full attention,” Whistle replied.
“Okay,” Shane fell silent, wanting to get to the mall so that he could see what Whistle intended to do. Finally he drove into the parking lot and found a free space. Turning off the engine, he looked once more at his passenger. “What now?” he said.
“I require some of your energy, Shane. I can take it through our bond, but only if it is freely given. You must open yourself and let your energy flow to me. Give me your hand,” he held out his own, and Shane took it. “Now close your eyes and imagine that some of your life energy, your ‘soul’ is flowing down your arm and into me through our connection,” Whistle directed him softly.
Shane did so. He thought of his energy as a pulsing stream, and he imagined that some of it was going into Whistle through their clasped hands. “Good,” he heard the boy say in satisfaction. “That is enough, Shane. I’m finished. What do you think?”
He opened his eyes, then they practically bugged out of his head as he stared at the person sitting in his passenger seat. It was still Whistle – but it was a Whistle who had aged a good seven years or so in about a minute! This guy was taller, broader of shoulder, still slim but with a young man’s developed body…light golden down shaded his jaw, and the pointed face was a bit wider. The hair atop his head was a bit rougher as well, having lost that softness that a young boy’s sometimes had. “How is this?” he asked in a voice that was still musical but that had dropped at least an octave.
‘Dear God,’ Shane thought, stunned. His perfect man was sitting in the passenger’s seat of his car, wearing nothing but his denim jacket over his smooth chest and the tattered remains of that too-small gown over his slightly wider hips. If he could have sat down and written out everything that he was looking for in a guy, the list would have translated into Whistle as he was now. He was actually drooling a bit, and his hands were trembling a tad as he fought the urge to just jump on the otherworldly creature and fuck his brains out right here in the car.
“I-I…you look great,” he managed to stutter through his rising lust. “Really great, Whistle.”
A bright smile spread over the young man’s face, making Shane’s groin tighten and his stomach twist. “I’m very glad! I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to do it with my diminished energy, but I managed to draw some of yours off of you easily. Now your sister won’t think that you’re a pervert,” he added happily.
“Yeah,” Shane croaked. He shuddered faintly.
“Are you well, Shane?” he heard Whistle ask anxiously.
“Umm…sort of. It’s just…did you do that on purpose, Whistle? Make yourself look like the guy of my dreams?”
“Of course,” the otherworldly being replied in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. “I went into your mind as you slept, and took the form of a male that I knew you would find ultimately desirable. While you would already want me because of our bond, it seemed to be a wise idea to make myself into someone you would desire above all others. Have I not done that?”
“Oh, yeah,” Shane said huskily. “You sure did. Damn,” he muttered, rubbing at his own forehead desperately. “I’m just…having a real hard time keeping my hands off of you, Whistle.”
“You wish to have sex with me?” Whistle asked, making him jump and give the blonde a rather wide-eyed stare.
“That would be a yes,” he said slowly. “More than I ever have with anyone else. But…maybe it’s the younger form you were just…err…wearing, or maybe it’s the fact that you come from another dimension. It just feels wrong to want to have sex with you, Whistle.”
“Oh. But I made this form specifically for that, Shane,” the being said uncertainly. “I could see that on this world your version of procreation was much different than ours - and that you’d want to do this thing with your Lamhulae, even though we won’t have a child physically as we’re both males. I want to make you happy, Shane, so I designed this body to do so.”
“Shit,” Shane said, “That is not helping. You sound so damn innocent, Whistle - because you are! Listen I really, really want you. But we’re gonna have to wait on the sex until I can get used to this new form of yours, and you can adapt to this world more completely. Otherwise I’d just feel too weird. Can you handle that?”
“I will do whatever you wish, Shane,” the other man replied quietly. “You are my Lamhulae, and this is your world. You know its rules far better than I, so I will abide by whatever you decide. I only wish to make you happy, and if this is what will do so then we will not merge our physical forms until you are ready.”
“Thanks, I think,” Shane said dryly. “Well, let’s go get you some clothes for your new body. I’m glad that you changed it before I bought you anything, or I’d have had to buy you a whole new wardrobe afterward. Come on,” he got out of the car, followed by Whistle.
The young man padded beside him as they walked toward the mall entrance. Whistle was taller now; his head actually reached Shane’s shoulder. He kept glancing at the lovely being, thinking that while he looked older and more masculine Whistle was still quite beautiful. And far sexier, now that he wasn’t making Shane uneasy with thoughts about pedophilia. His hand itched to reach out and span the still slim waist, but he fought down that urge. Touching Whistle would be a bad idea right now.
But he could control himself. He wasn’t fifteen anymore, either. Until he could stop thinking of Whistle as some innocent, big-eyed creature that he was defiling, he simply wouldn’t be able to have sex with the lovely being without feeling unbelievably dirty and wrong. And he’d have plenty of time to adjust, since Whistle seemed to be here to stay. Somehow he wasn’t bothered by that fact – how could he be, really, since he was drawn so strongly to Whistle? And not just physically, either. Whatever this bond was they shared, it made him want to be around the otherworldly creature as often as possible. And something told him that this feeling would never go away, now that the lightning thing had happened between them.
“Hey, Whistle?” he said as a thought struck him.
“Yes?” the blonde looked at him as he opened the door and held it so that Whistle could walk through into the mall.
“Uhh, could you stand me calling you 'Wes’ around my sister? She’s not going to believe that your name is Whistle,” Shane remarked dryly. “I can tell her that it’s a nickname, and she won’t mind me calling you that, but I have to have a ‘real’ name for you. So how about Wes Johnson?”
The other man cocked his head again. “If that is what you want, Shane. I will try to answer to it,” he said.
“Great. Here, we’ll go in this store first,” he took Whistle into a large department store that would have almost everything that the being needed clothing-wise.
Whistle was as curious as a cat, poking his nose into everything as Shane got a clerk to take his measurements. The man’s brows had shot up at the sight of the tattered thing that the young man was wearing around his waist, not to mention the lack of shoes. But Shane had come up with a semi-plausible explanation, and the fact that he was going to make a large purchase didn’t hurt any either. Soon Whistle was clad in a pair of jeans, and a blue t-shirt that suited his coloring. Shane had had to explain underwear to him, but had refused to go into the dressing room to make sure he put them on right. If he had to see Whistle with no clothes on from the waist down, he wasn’t going to be able to stop himself from ravishing the other man right there in the dressing room.
In the shoe department, they got him into some socks and a pair of Nikes. Once he was fully clothed, Shane relaxed and hurriedly bought a lot of other clothes for Whistle. He wanted to get to the hospital before morning visiting hours were over. He thought that they’d go through a drive-thru for breakfast. He wondered what Whistle would make of fast food. Or any food, for that matter, since the being hadn’t as yet eaten anything with his new body.
He could admit to himself that he was buying clothes that made Whistle look good for his own benefit. He tried not to blatantly ogle the blonde, but it wasn’t easy. Whistle had done an excellent job of making a form that he’d desire. He wanted the otherworldly being so bad that it hurt. Literally. His groin was aching the entire time that they were in the department store. And Whistle wasn’t helping, since he had an innocent sexuality that was making Shane feel like his head was going to explode. One or both of them.
The worst moment was when Whistle bent over to peer at a display of belts. One of the ones near the floor had an interesting buckle. Shane had been picking out shirts, but he happened to look up just at that moment. His eyes came to rest on a tight little ass beautifully displayed in the jeans as the other man bent over, and his mouth went dry as the Sahara. Oh God, his hands were moving of their own volition! He was reaching out, he was going to cop-a-feel right here in public…
Whistle straightened up suddenly, breaking him out of his trance of lust. He shuddered to a halt, his whole body thrumming as he fought his instincts down. Whistle whirled around holding a belt in his hands. “I like this one, Shane,” he said, lifting it so that the human could see it more clearly.
“All right, Whistle. If you like it we’ll get it,” Shane replied hoarsely.
The blonde beamed at him. Shane pulled himself together somehow. “Come on, let’s take this stuff up to the counter and pay for it,” he directed Whistle, and they both toted the large piles of clothing over to the counter so that Shane could put them on his credit card. He winced at the thought of his balance as the clerk rang the clothes up, but at least Whistle wasn’t wearing the shredded remains of that gown any longer.
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