Jon was sitting in his first class of the day when the stone’s constructs inserted information into everyone’s minds. All at once, he knew he was going to have boobs again very soon, as would every other man on the planet. He wondered how big they’d end up this time. The information said that they would have just as much variance as women’s breasts. The dump also brought up something he hadn’t considered. Men would also no longer have chest hair; from the bottom of the rib cage to the neck, men’s fronts would be as hairless as a woman's. He shuddered for a moment at the idea of hairy boobs.
He was relieved that anyone attracted to men would have an interest in boobs grafted on to their sexual preferences, but he had a momentary concern that Karyn might not be into his boobs this time. Karyn… Had she done this somehow? If so, how had she gotten around the stone’s range limit? It was going to be hard to get to see her before the end of school… The teacher was visibly disturbed by the information dump and distracted. Jon quickly pulled out his phone and texted Karyn, asking if she had anything to do with “this”, only to see a text from her arrive as he was typing asking him the same thing. He quickly responded that it wasn’t him.
He could tell from the sudden tension in the room that everyone else had also gotten the information dump; he was the only one who wasn’t trying to convince themselves they hadn’t gone off the deep end. Part of him was even hopeful they would have the same sensitivity as before, he couldn’t help but think about how it had felt when Karyn had played with the ones from the temporary wish. Another part of him wanted them to be big, like before, if he was going to have boobs he wanted them to be nice. He also knew that if this was related to the stone there was nothing he could do to stop it for the time being.
The tension didn’t let up; everyone was doing their best to act normal, pretending that they hadn’t just had some information magically inserted into their minds and brought to the fore of their awareness.
After about 15 minutes, it happened, he felt a pressure on his chest, he looked down and watched. First, his nipples changed; in only a second they were as they had been for a week, much larger, showing through his shirt, then his breasts surged out, rapidly growing. He could feel the weight increasing second by second as they grew like balloons filled from a pressurized tank. They tightened his shirt slightly as they filled out, all the way to the size he had had for a week. In all, it took only 30 seconds for him to go from flat-chested to busty. They felt familiar; he almost liked it now that it wasn’t weird to have them, though it occurred to him that this time they didn’t come with a bra. Jiggle might be a problem. Quickly looking around the room, he saw everyone else reacting, mostly with shock and surprise; he saw a couple of girls staring at his chest, only partially in surprise. It quickly dawned on him that he had, by far, the biggest boobs in the room… and if girls' preferences worked like guys, that meant quite a few of them were going to be as bad as Karyn was at first…
As the information about the change filled Karyn’s head, she couldn’t help but be happy. It was exactly what she wanted. Suspiciously like what she wanted. She immediately texted Jon, suspecting he had somehow done this for her. The quick reply that it wasn’t him was confusing; what was causing it then? Still, she was thrilled, she did her best not to show what she was feeling about it and looked around the classroom. Much like in Jon’s class, the room was tense.
The 15 minutes ticked by, the teacher kept talking, the tension rose. Then it happened, Karyn felt the same strange sensation she had felt after wishing she would like boobs for a week. She glanced around the room, all the guys had boobs, including the teacher. The room went silent for several minutes. Karyn noticed most of the other girls having a hard time not staring at the boys’ chests. Karyn found herself smirking, she was probably the only straight girl in the room who wasn’t having that kind of trouble. Jon was right: it did get easier once you were used to it. Jon… was he as busty as before? She hoped so… She texted him again, asking how he looks.
Brianna Adams sat outside at a cafe, waiting for her boyfriend to show up for their brunch before her first lecture of the day when the information hit her. She was at first stunned, unsure what to make of it, men growing boobs? And she was going to like them? She briefly toyed with the idea that it was some sort of weird delusion and that she should call a doctor, but looking around she could tell something had happened to everyone. They were all reacting in their own ways. So at least everyone probably got the same weird information dump. Was it true? She couldn’t bring herself to disbelieve it.
Her thoughts went in circles, and she watched the people around her, soon she saw her boyfriend, looking troubled, she called to him.
“HEY! Chris!”
He rushed over and joined her, “Ah, Bri, there you are… I… did you…”
“The thing about… boobs? Yeah…”
“Ah.”
“Not happy about the idea?”
“I… not especially… are you?”
“Well… not happy… I have to admit I’m… curious. Maybe I’ll finally understand why some guys drool all over bigger girls.”
“Mmm”
The barista brought their coffees and sandwiches out to them and set them down. As the door back into the cafe shut behind her it happened.
Brianna felt a strange sensation in her head, a feeling she couldn’t pin down. She blinked for a moment, looking at her food, then started looking up. Her gaze went from the table, up Chris’ body until it got to his chest where it stopped. She couldn’t quite will herself to stop looking. Chris’ chest had changed, his shirt was pulled taut over his new bust, large, round, lovely were the words that came to her mind. Her own breasts were modest, but Chris’ could accurately be compared to melons. She felt… things. She was very much… finding it easy to understand how someone could talk to a chest.
His arms came up and crossed in front of his boobs.
“Hey, uh Bri?”
“Wha? Oh!” Her eyes came up to his face. “I’m sorry I… they… they’re so big…”
“Yeah… I… guess you are getting that understanding…”
Vicente had been running back and forth, but not exactly because he was nervous about changes to his body. No, it was his job: he was a midfielder for Liverpool, and the action early in the Champions League fixture against Atlético Madrid had moved all over the pitch. Neither team seemed to be able to hold possession for more than a few minutes, and the game was scoreless.
The fans in the stands certainly parsed the information right away, leading to an elevated level of murmuring above the typical supporters’ chants. The players barely noticed it, intent as they were on the match.
Until the 34th minute, when a wave of growing breasts crashed over the more than 53,000 at Anfield. The 22 players on the pitch, the officials, and the coaches on the bench were all staring, looking down at what happened to them. The ball sat there, paling in importance to the balls that had suddenly been mounted on their chests. After looking down, Vicente noticed there were equally confused-looking people in the stands. Even the event security staff, their backs to the action, were astonished.
Dios mío…
Remi sat and nursed his wine, digesting the fact that he had struck out with another woman.
He had come to Paris in hopes that its reputation for romance would help him. It had not. The information about the coming change had given him hope. Perhaps if he got big breasts, like the woman across the café, he would stand out more, have a better chance.
He felt the strange pressure on his chest. Ah, it begins! He felt a rapid surge of weight and began to hope that his private little wish was being granted. As the growth subsided, he could feel the heavy fullness on his chest, the motion as he shifted slightly, the new tightness of his shirt. It filled him with hope. He looked down and was disappointed: these were not the large breasts he hoped would make him stand out. He glanced around the room at the other men. Sure, they were very much not small, even slightly above average. But a bit above average would not give him the eye of ladies as he walked into a room. He despaired.
Julie sat watching Remi. She had seen him leave another woman’s table in obvious disappointment. She had seen the rapid growth of his breasts and felt the new feelings of… interest in them. He had been decent looking to begin with, but the way his breasts sat—perky, plump, so round, and with no support—they were stunning breasts. She understood things about what made a bust nice that she would never have thought about before. Her own were significantly larger than his—but, in her mind, not as magnificent. They sagged slightly with their size; his were full and firm. She found herself staring at him, giving him a second and third look, not just at his chest, but all of him. The addition enhanced his look, made him all the more attractive to her. As much as she looked at him she could not stop her eyes from returning to his chest. She found herself crossing the café, approaching his table.
“Bonsoir, is this seat taken?”
Remi looked up, seeing the woman of his dreams speaking to him. He was aghast but managed to answer.
“No, no, by all means.”
A conversation began; they were enchanted, everything clicked. Both had trouble not looking at the other's chest. At one point, they both looked at the same time and caught each other as they looked up and broke into laughter. They talked and talked until the café closed for the evening.
Mark Harrington sat in his office, looking over a spreadsheet. He was aware of the warning about the coming change, but surely he was above that.
He was not; he felt the pressure in his chest, and his hands went up. In the time it took his hands to move to his chest, his nipples had already changed; he could feel them poking his palms. His new bust rapidly ballooned out; in less than 10 seconds his shirt was very tight, and as the fabric of the dress shirt didn’t have much stretch to give, the shirt had pulled some of its length from his trousers. The gaps between buttons became curves as the buttons strained to hold onto his expanding breasts. It wasn’t a battle the buttons could win; one popped off and went sailing, bouncing off his monitor. Another 10 seconds went by, and a second button gave out. His chest finally stopped growing. This strain was gone, but Mark was left with a wide open space right on his brand-new boobs. His suit jacket wouldn’t close over them. What was he going to do?
Jon’s class ended. He had felt his phone vibrate again earlier, so he checked it, and found the message from Karyn asking how he looked. He quickly responded, simply saying he looked the same as before.
Walking the halls Jon was struck by the difference, girls stared at his chest. He was mostly used to how having boobs felt physically, but this aspect was new. He noticed that some of the girls he passed gave him a bit more of a look after they managed to pull their eyes off his bust, he’d never experienced anything like that before. It was odd seeing all the other guys with boobs, like him none wore any sort of support so they bounced around a lot. He found himself supporting his bust with one arm as he walked to try to reduce the amount of movement, he now really understood the invention of the bra.
His second class went much like the end of his first, every guy trying to ignore his bust, most of the girls trying and failing not to look too much at guys’ chests, a lot of them ending up looking at Jon.
He found the female attention… surprising, though he supposed he shouldn’t, they had been put in a very similar situation to the one Karyn was in the previous week. They weren’t used to liking boobs. Most of them were putting in an effort not to stare for too long, not all successfully.
Upon entering his physics class he found Bill, his lab partner sitting at the black table that functioned as their shared desk. Bill was one of very few guys Jon had seen with a bust even close to his own in size.
“Hey Jon, I see… the change got you good too huh?”
“Uh… yeah.” Jon’s mind flashed back to the previous week, the Bill that was concerned about how fast his boobs were growing in the alternate world where a minority of boys in town grew boobs. Concerned that he’d end up like Jon, with big boobs he could no longer hide by binding them. It seemed that if that world continued to exist, that Bill’s worries were well founded, at least if the current Bill was any evidence.
Bill seemed unsure of what to say. “Heavy aren’t they?”
“Yeah… they move a lot too… I… think I’m going to get a bra as soon as I can…”
“Mmm yeah, I probably should too.”
Jon was relieved the awkward conversation ended when the teacher walked in. He too had boobs, not very big, but they were very obvious under his shirt, and like every other male he hadn’t had any chance to do anything to support them yet, and he was obviously trying to ignore them.
The rest of the morning passed similarly for Jon, noticing a girl finding his chest distracting in ways she wasn’t used to and being unable to stop herself from looking, sometimes staring. He did his best to ignore it, though part of him enjoyed it; it made him feel attractive.
At lunchtime, he, much as he had the previous week, planned on grabbing something and eating while sitting alone on the wall, but while he was getting something from the cafeteria he saw Biff.
What surprised him was that Biff looked exactly as he had during the previous week, his shirt very tight across his bust, big, dome-shaped boobs stretching it out. He saw Sarah with him, very obviously distracted by Biff's new bust. Jon stopped to observe, he found himself amused by Sarah’s near-complete inability to look her boyfriend in the eye. It reminded him of how Karyn acted around him for the first few times he hung out with her after her wish the previous week. He was surprised at just how much effort Sarah seemed to be putting into not talking to Biff’s chest, he thought she might just let herself look, it wasn’t working very well, but she was obviously trying very hard. Maybe she actually liked the big lummox.
He changed his mind about going to the wall and found a not-so-busy part of the cafeteria to sit in and eat. He found that he could if he leaned forward slightly he could rest his boobs on the table and get some of their weight off his shoulders. He hadn’t realised how much his bras were doing for him. He was feeling sore, the natural supports in his boobs didn’t like all the bouncing he was putting them through on their first day in existence. He could feel some tension seep down his back from his shoulders due to the unaccustomed load his bust put on them.
Near the end of his lunch period, Jon started walking to his next class, very glad that it wasn’t a Gym day for him, he wouldn’t want to do that without a bra for anything. He tucked his left arm under his breasts to hold them up and cut down on bouncing.
The next class was civics, and today involved a discussion time towards the end. Half the class had been assigned different readings the previous week and now they had to explain their part to the other person. Jon was paired up with a girl, he didn’t know her very well, which would have been fine, normally. The problem was she spent much of the discussion period talking to Jon’s chest. He tried to be understanding, to let it slide, but she wasn’t getting better as it went on… she didn’t even seem to be trying too hard. Eventually, Jon said something.
“Hey, uh… I’m up here.”
She turned bright red. “I… oh… I’m sorry… I… I’m just not… it’s… new…”
“I... look I know, they’re big, and… I’m a guy… I get… the uhm difficulty… and I know you’re not used to it… but please try not to… that is.. try to talk to me and not… them.”
“I… I’m so sorry, I’ll do better.”
They went back to their discussion, she did do better, still looking frequently, but no longer just staring. Jon could deal with that. As long as she was obviously trying not to stare he could let it slide, for now.
The day was almost over and Jon was relieved, he was hoping to get a bra at the mall with Karyn, he desperately needed one, his shoulders were sore. The last class of the day was math, it passed as well as it could. He found himself resting his boobs on his desk to get their weight off his shoulders, several girls in the room were distracted by that, but he ignored them. Taking notes felt a bit strange, keeping his body angled right to keep the weight on the desk while also letting his arm reach the page was a little dance as he wrote each line, adjusting position. Every line a little different as he got further down the page and closer to himself. As used to having boobs as he was from the previous week, this was new.
The bell signalling the end of the day rang and he headed out for the wall to meet Karyn, he was forced to walk a bit slower and keep his left arm under his bust for support. So for the first time in a long time, Karyn was at the wall first waiting for him.
The rest of Karyn’s class passed slowly for her, she was excited to walk the halls, see all the guys, what all their boobs looked like. She looked around the room again, judging all the boys’ boobs. Most were small for her taste, it occurred to her that she really was into very big boobs… most men were too small in her opinion, though if Jon had ended up the same size as last time she’d have nothing to complain about… She worried that he hadn’t, what if he’d ended up flat chested, would he be willing to use a wish to be busty again?
When the class did end, and she got Jon’s text finally answering her question about what he looked like she was relieved, he looked the same, the beautiful bust she had desperately wanted to return was back for good.
Walking through the hall she was glancing around at every guy she saw, just enjoying the fact that everyone had boobs. Watching other girls fail to avoid staring, walking past a couple chatting, the girl talking to her boyfriend's chest. She was thrilled, this world was what she wanted. She wasn’t sure when she had started wanting it, but at some point over the week of being attracted to boobs, she’d developed an obsession with them, a desire that everyone like boobs as much as her. She was sure that that wasn’t actually true… but just the fact that men and women could both relate to having and liking boobs… that women who had large busts could understand a bit more what others saw in them, that guys could understand the negatives of having boobs… it seemed more just and right to her.
Her day passed much like that, she let herself look a little more at guys with nice boobs than she ever had before, taking advantage of the fact that all the other girls were doing it. She tried her best not to be too impolite about it.
She did have a few conversations with other girls about the situation, one girl thought it was fun, as Karyn had. Another thought it felt wrong, finding it clashed with her ideas of herself, Karyn had trouble understanding that perspective, she still liked men, and men had boobs now… how was it bad? Weird and new, yes, a little bit uncomfortable at first as you get used to it… but wrong?
Karyn particularly was excited about her class after lunch, expecting that one guy would have the same boobs he had before, like Jon, she’d have a nice view and an excuse if she got caught, it’s just new to her, she can’t help it. She spent almost that entire class looking at that guy’s chest, he really did have nice boobs, almost as nice as Jon’s…
Eventually, the end of the day came, and she rushed to the wall to see Jon, she couldn’t wait to see him busty again. She was surprised when he wasn’t waiting for her. She sat down and found herself full of nervous energy. She started to fidget, while her eyes were scanning the area looking for Jon, her hands were flicking each other, fingers twirling and dancing around themselves in chaotic swirls.
After a while, she spotted him approaching, his arm under his bust supporting it. She was thrilled anew to see him like this, bust as full and lovely as she remembered, stretching out his shirt.
“What took you, Jon-boyfriend?”
He pointed at his chest with his free hand, “Lack of bra… er… could we head for the mall so I can fix that problem?”
“Oh! Wow, that… sucks… yeah, let’s get you some support!”
Karyn was ecstatic, Jon’s boobs were back, exactly as they had been as far as she could tell. She could sympathize with him having gone the entire day without a bra, she hadn’t done it herself but she had once earlier in the year done gym class with no sports bra, and her boobs had let her know that they didn’t appreciate that. She could imagine that Jon’s were not happy with him.
Even in this, she was excited, she was going bra shopping with him, and he was more comfortable being in less clothing around her now... maybe he’d model bras for her…
He was still supporting his chest with his off-hand. A thought in the back of her mind, she wished she could help… but as much fun as holding them for him sounded it wasn’t likely to actually help much.
Once they arrived at the department store and within it the area where bras were, they found it quite busy with men looking to buy something to help cut down on motion. Karyn and Jon, unlike them, had a starting point, they knew what size bra Jon wore during the previous temporary wish, there was just one problem: the store didn’t carry that size, they barely had anything in his band size let alone the cups, they were bigger than DD and that was the largest cup the store carried. The only thing they had that would help were sports bras, though there were slim pickings for large sizes of those. Jon picked up just one, it didn’t look like it would fit well, none of the ones on offer did, but he thought that something would be better than nothing.
He bought it and slipped into a fitting room to put it on. It helped, it was a bit tight, but it would do for now. He felt the load come off his shoulders, not as much as he had hoped, but it was very much better than nothing.
They quickly got out of the crowded store so they could talk.
Karyn was a little disappointed, no bra modelling, and she was sad that Jon had left almost empty-handed. Where had the “other” version of him bought those bras? Where had this version of her bought hers? She was over DD too… not much, but that’s what the tag on her bra said.
“Bleh, I can’t believe they don’t even carry your size at all… If they had run out I’d get it.. but…”
“Yeah… well, I guess I can wish one up so I’ve got something that fits well and I guess wish to know where I bought the ones I had before…”
“Hmmm yeah… but… be careful about how you word that wish…”
“Oh, I will be.”
“Speaking of wishing, what the hell did this anyway… I’ll admit I… did kinda want this… but I didn’t wish for it…”
“Oh?”
Karyn turned bright red, “Er… Yeah, I have to admit I… kinda got a bit obsessed… I… well I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like if you had boobs… permanently and… I know you wouldn’t want to be… a freak… so well…”
“Ah”
“I mean I… also just… kinda wanted it… I… well it seemed unfair that… most people who had boobs… didn’t… like them… that way…”
“I… see. Are you sure you had nothing to do with this?”
“Absolutely, how could I? The stone has a range limit, remember? I certainly don’t have anything that could do this if the stone couldn’t”
“... do you have a magical artifact that can’t do this?”
Karyn’s brain ground to a halt, “I… no? What? Why would I?”
“It’s just the way you phrased it made it sound like you had something…”
“Jon there is zero chance that if I had a magical artifact of my own that you wouldn’t know about it by now.”
“OK, OK. I do wish I’d brought the thing with me today… could’ve avoided this soreness… how long will that take to go away?”
“I dunno, the closest thing that’s happened to me was forgetting a sports bra for gym class… it took a few hours to go away…”
“Bleh”
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
“Hey, Jon-boyfriend? How do you feel about… well having boobs permanently?”
“I… hmm.” He thought for a moment, “I… well I guess I’m not… opposed to it… well I know how much you liked them, it was pretty obvious. After today… I kinda feel good about them, despite the… discomfort, the way a lot of girls were looking at them… felt weird, but also… good? I dunno I’ve never seen a girl do a double take looking at me before and that happened twice today.”
“Double takes? Really? They are very nice boobs. I can’t say I don’t understand reacting that way. Though… I think I’m… used to liking boobs enough that I could probably… stop myself from being so obvious.”
“You think so? Even if I found something that showed lots of cleavage?”
“Cleavage is cheating.”
They continued chatting and bantering all the way to Jon’s house. Upon arriving, they were greeted by Jon’s mother. She was shocked by the size of Jon’s bust and fussed over him, insisting on dragging him out to shop for bras… until he explained they’d just come from doing that and come up almost empty-handed on ones that fit.
As they left and headed for Jon’s bedroom they heard her muttering about having no clue where those had come from.
Once they got to his room Jon pulled the stone’s box out.
“OK… what first?”
“Well let’s find out what’s going on.”
“OK,” Jon flipped the lid up, placed the tip of his index finger on the stone and spoke, softly so that no one but Karyn would hear, “I wish Karyn and I knew what caused men to have boobs.”
For the third time, they felt the stone’s information dump, filling their heads with the knowledge they wanted. From Karyn holding the stone the previous evening and wanting things… to a simplified version of what the stone did to satisfy that desire.
“Oh God… I… I did do it…”
Jon’s hand snapped away from the stone, and he closed the lid, for a moment he almost threw the stone away from himself. More terrified of it than ever. “I… It… activated on its own!”
“Because I wanted… this…” Karyn felt guilty. She wanted this… but she would never have actually wished for it. She knew it wasn’t going to be fun for everyone.
They were both silent for a while. Then a horrible thought occurred to Jon.
“Oh… I… oh no…”
“What?”
“I… well when I first got it… I held it a lot before I showed it to you… what if… what if… you didn’t actually like me before… what if that’s just… the stone doing it because I wanted… and I didn’t even know…”
Karyn wasn’t sure how to respond. Her feelings for Jon seemed real to her… but then, they would, wouldn’t they. There was nothing she could say that would refute the possibility that those feelings hadn’t existed before spring break. There was only one way to know.
“You could… wish to know.”
Jon stared at the box in his hand. Did he want to know? What if his horrible suspicion was right? Could he live with that?
“Jon… I… don’t care if it’s because of the stone, I love you now. I don’t want to change that. Promise me even if it’s the stone’s doing you won’t try to undo it?”
“I… can’t make that promise… but I won’t do anything without you around… so you’ll know. I don’t want it if… it’s not real.”
Jon opened the box. He stared at the stone inside. He took a deep breath and again touched it, just with the tip of his finger.
“I wish for Karyn and I to know all the times that either of us caused the stone to self-activate, and what effect it had in response.” He removed his finger and snapped the box closed the instant he finished speaking, so fast in fact he barely saw the flash.
Again they felt the stone fill their minds with information. Information about the time they already knew, Karyn’s desire for Jon’s boobs to return permanently. And one other time.
Jon had been holding the stone in the morning before school. The first day back from spring break. His mind wandered. He wanted a girlfriend. In the back of his mind, where he didn’t let himself notice it, he wanted more than anything for it to be Karyn. The stone responded and began to calculate. He put it away, back into its box, before the calculations finished and left for school.
The stone examined the world as it was.
It found Karyn, examined her.
It examined her emotions.
It examined her motivations.
It examined her memories.
It confirmed that she was the one that Jon desired.
It evaluated ways to make Jon’s desires come true.
It evaluated what was needed, what was not.
It calculated all possible changes.
It calculated all possible courses of action.
It selected one.
It checked that course of action against the rules that governed it.
It found no conflict.
That the first day after spring break, while Jon was in class, inside his bag, inside its box, the stone flashed.
In the end, all it needed to do was give her a little push.
A push to take action, a push to think, to consider. To figure out for herself how she felt. The feelings were always there. All that was needed was a catalyst, a little reduction in her inhibitions for a day or so, surfacing memories to her conscious mind, memories of Jon.
Just that, the stone calculated, and they would end up together.
Inhibitions lowered. Had it caused that wish, the one about Sarah’s boobs and hair? It had, indirectly, by lowering her inhibitions it had caused her not to stop herself from speaking that idle thought aloud.
Jon and Karyn stared at each other. The knowledge settled in. Karyn’s feelings were her own, entirely real.
She crossed the space between them in an instant and almost tackled Jon as she hugged him. They both started crying softly, as they held each other tighter than they ever had before.
They were both deeply relieved that the stone had not changed Karyn to want Jon. That their newfound love was real.
The embrace and cry lasted for several minutes.
“I… It’s kinda nice to know Jon-boyfriend that, at some point, what you wanted most in the world was me,” Karyn said, still crying slightly.