text:
My friend Lenny
Lenny keeps getting taller, transforming his life over and over again as he grows and grows.
Getting Taller
Plausible Size Difference
Size Increase
Author: Reuben
Added: 1 May 2003 15,876 words 16,457 views 5.0 stars (2 votes)
Vote on this story
Jump to commentsMore like this
Part I: Our First Encounter
My friend Lenny started to grow one day about three years ago. I still have no idea what caused it. I'm normally a pretty skeptical person, but after what happened with Lenny I'd be willing to believe in astrology or the occult or anything. I'm no scientist, but I know his growth defied the laws of nature as well as anybody knows them. But no one ever stepped up and said, "I put a magic spell on your friend Lenny," or "Your friend Lenny was born under the rare conjunction of the stars Atlas and Goliath." So it remains a mystery.
Lenny's about 15 feet tall now and I guess (though I can't measure it) weighs two or three thousand pounds. I take the occasional trip to the lower 48, but usually stay with him, isolated in our home in the woods of Alaska. Only four very trusted people know of Lenny's secret, and it's great to have them as friends. Not only so Lenny can have company besides me from time to time, but also because they've been a tremendous help in helping us live relatively normal lives.
Marta is a lady who can sew, and she's made all of Lenny's clothes. He still outgrows his old clothes about every month or two, but it's slowing down. Then there's Tom, who taught Lenny how to work with wood and somehow acquired tools that fit his enormous hands. So Lenny and Tom make boats now, and I sell them along with other water equipment. It's a better living than any other I could imagine, even if my partner weren't a giant. And Lucy and Frank, three miles down the road, are our nearest neighbors and the owners of the property we live on. They think absolutely the world of both Lenny and me, and we'd do anything for them. Lucy insists on having us over for dinner every day—even though Lenny eats as much as 15 men! They have money to burn, and they've sincerely told us that there's nothing they'd rather do with what they have than share it with someone in need.
But I'm starting my story at the end, where I ought to start at the beginning. My name's Carter. Lenny and I met just after I graduated from college. I was a phys ed teacher and a coach at a small college in Ohio and Lenny was a groundskeeper there. We met a week or so after I arrived in late summer. I was cleaning up equipment off the soccer field and he was mowing the grass. We saw one another and waved. Lenny was a man of average height with black hair and dark skin. He had a rugged, handsome face that kept drawing my gaze as we continued our work. I suppose he noticed, because when he finished his mowing and came over to meet me, I think he already had more in mind than just shooting the breeze.
His face was even more handsome up close. It was not a perfect face, and Lenny certainly couldn't have been a model or anything, but to me it was one of the most attractive faces I'd ever seen. As I said, it was rugged, with a square jaw and a high forehead. His eyebrows were dark, very thick, and almost met over his nose. His nose itself turned up just a little and was the tiniest bit asymmetrical, as if he'd had an injury. He was sweaty, of course, and his beard was evidently of the sort that grew thick, for it was about three in the afternoon, and he clearly shaved; yet his chin was already shadowy. A handsome shock of curly black hair rose from the neck of his soaked T-shirt. "I'm Lenny," he said, and gave me his hand.
I shook his hand and we looked at one another a little longer than most men do. My gaydar went off and in my pants I felt my cock twitching with anticipation. It hadn't expected this at all. "Good to meet you," I said. "My name's Carter. I'm new here. I teach phys ed, and I'm coaching soccer this season."
"I know," Lenny replied. "I've watched you." With that, I knew with almost certainty that there was at least a one-night stand here, and I hoped for something much more. He didn't say, "I've seen you." He said, "I've watched you." There's a big difference. "You been here long?" I asked. I was trying to think of what to say to show that I was interested in him. It turns out I needn't have. He glanced down at my crotch and that said it all. "Eight years." He looked to be in his mid to late twenties, and I guessed that he'd come here not long after high school. "It's a good place to work," he continued.
"Yeah," I said. "I like it a lot. Nice people, good students." I paused and laughed, "the athletes aren't the greatest, though." That was putting it mildly. The teams had spirit, but the school was not known for its athletic prowess. It was principally an agricultural school. About a third of its graduates went into agriculture or forestry.
Lenny paused and smiled but didn't laugh. He kept looking at me. "That's the truth," he finally said. Then: "What time you get off work today?" There it was. What a wonderful question. I smiled and took my eyes from his to glance at my shoes. "Whenever I finish here. Maybe an hour or two to clean up equipment and get ready for tomorrow."
"Come find me when you're done." It was not a question. "I'll be in the grounds office." He nodded his head towards the small white house (really an office) behind the gym. Then he held out his hand and I took it once more. "Okay, I will," I said. With that he smiled, turned, and returned to his mowing without a word.
The rest of the afternoon I had butterflies in my stomach. I hadn't had sex since I got to this town, and I certainly hadn't expected anyone to approach me. Not that I'm bad looking, mind you. I'm six feet tall and I stay in good shape running and biking and lifting weights. But in a town where there's no gay community to speak of, the last thing I expected was for a handsome, hairy, sweaty man to just stroll up and ask me, "What time do you get off work?" I found myself whistling while I sorted things out for the next day.
At last when I'd finished I went to find Lenny. He was in the grounds office doing paperwork when I came in. He'd cleaned up a bit and changed shirts, but there was still a natural outdoorsiness to him that didn't go away. Even in a suit he would have looked liked he belonged in the sun using his muscles, not at a desk using a computer.
He didn't waste any time. "You're the best-looking man at this school, Carter. I sure am glad they hired you." He smiled at me, but it wasn't the aggressive come-on smile he'd given me earlier. This time it was warm and friendly. It made him even sexier. He looked like someone with whom I might have a real relationship, not just a roll in the hay.
I smiled and looked at him. Now it was he who was looking down and avoiding my gaze. "Thanks," I said, and added, "You're not bad looking yourself." Neither of us spoke for a moment. Then I decided to risk total honesty. "Fuck, what am I saying? You're about the sexiest man I've ever seen." Now we looked into one another's eyes and at last we were not testing one another, but were bonding. Our look said, "You are mine and I am yours."
He stood and walked around his desk to stand before me and began to unbutton his shirt. He wore a clean T-shirt on underneath, and I longed to rip it off him to see his hirsute chest beneath. Suddenly a thought struck me. "Should we lock the door or something?" It was about 5:30.
Lenny didn't pause. "No one ever comes here." I realized looking around the room that it was the office of one person only. Students helped with the groundskeeping at this school. We would not be disturbed. Still, the door remained unlocked, and the thought of someone walking in on us added a certain excitement to our first encounter.
I stood very close to him, about an inch taller than he. As he unbuttoned his shirt from the top, I began unbuttoning it from the bottom. Our hands met in the middle (he had very large and masculine hands) and I caressed his strong fingers once before taking his shirt and pulling it off his shoulders. His arms were the strong arms of one who uses them in his work, not the perfectly sculpted arms of a bodybuilder. They were large, yes, but sinewy too. And he had a tattoo of a bi-wing prop plane on his right upper arm, which I found sexy and mysterious at the same time. (I later would ask what it meant. He said his hobby was antique planes.) At last his T-shirt was off and I beheld his magnificent torso. It was not as tanned as his arms and face, as he worked mostly with a shirt on. But that didn't lessen its beauty. His strong chest and washboard abs were covered with curly black hair that led down into his pants, which I now longed to take from him. He had a broad back and strong dorsals that I now rubbed, moving from his waist up to his armpits. I soon was massaging his rounded shoulders and biceps as he began to unbutton my own shirt.
Shirtless, we embraced one another and rubbed our chests together as we rubbed our cheeks. My chest and face were smooth, as I have little body hair and my beard grows slowly. I loved the sandpapery feel of his cheek against mine. As we rubbed together, our hard-ons bumped uncomfortably until we at last released our embrace so we could free our aching dicks. Just as I am fair skinned and he dark, I smooth and he hairy, so was I cut and he uncut. I didn't feel at all unmanly next to him, yet everything about his body seemed rawer in its masculinity than my own or, indeed, just about anyone I'd ever fucked. Even his odor was thicker and muskier than I knew my own was. Our naked bodies filled the room with a sweaty, sexy smell.
I fingered his dick and felt the pre-cum slick on its head. I rubbed it around, pushing his foreskin completely off his now hard cockhead. I knew that uncut men are more sensitive than cut men are, so I was gentle with my hands. He gasped occasionally as I rubbed my hands up and down his shaft, playing with its head with my thumb like it was a joystick. He now had my own dick in his hands and was squeezing and letting go, squeezing and letting go. Though I wanted it to last forever, I already felt orgasm welling up in me.
I knelt at Lenny's feet and very gently took his cock into my mouth, running my tongue around the head and playing with the slit. It was an extremely large organ and when I took it completely into my mouth, the end of it went down my throat. Now his gasps of pleasure were louder, and I knew he too would not last much longer. While on the ground, I took the opportunity to explore his strong legs, which also were hairy, and brown below the middle of his thigh. His shorts were bunched up at his booted feet.
I sucked him gently but firmly while he rubbed my shoulders, back, and upper arms. His gasps increased in frequency until I felt the hot come spewing into my mouth. Still I sucked as I swallowed the juice, and still he came. (I would later learn that Lenny not only came a lot, but could also come several times a day on a regular basis! More raw masculinity!)
When at last he had finished, he knelt and kissed my lips, inserting his tongue and tasting the salty sweetness of his own semen in my mouth. I stood then so that he could suck me too. He certainly knew what he was doing. The one area in which my degree of masculinity is almost on a par with Lenny's is the size of my rod, so I found myself fucking Lenny's throat just as he had fucked mine. His lips closed around the base of my hard member and his tongue rolled around me and paused to tickle my underside. I was unable then to hold back any longer and I came into his throat with a few jets of pleasure, and then it was over.
The whole thing lasted only about ten minutes. Some have said that a short fuck is not a good fuck, but I don't agree. There is certainly a lot of pleasure to be gained by a long episode of foreplay and careful timing during sex, and I had done that on many occasions (and would do so with Lenny as well). But the intense fuck that rises rapidly from first erection to sudden orgasm has its own thrill as well. If slow sex is like a bottle of champagne, then the good quickie is like a shot of excellent whiskey. And sex with Lenny was about as excellent as it got.
Part II: Lenny Begins to Grow
So that was our first encounter. Lenny and I didn't move in together, but in nearly every other way we became partners. We enjoyed great sex on almost a daily basis, and sometimes more than once a day. But we also ate together, went to movies and games together, sometimes went dancing together at one of several gay clubs Lenny knew of about forty miles' drive from where we were. (There was no gay life in our small town.) We were happy and even began to talk of living together when it happened.
Lenny began to grow.
As I said at the beginning of this story, neither of us knows why it happened. Lenny had noticed that his pants were getting a little tight, and while he certainly didn't seem any fatter, the scale at school read 183 pounds, where Lenny normally weighed about 175. More alarming still, he now stood almost as tall as I, where he had always before been about one inch shorter. We discussed it over beers that night at a bar in town.
"What the fuck is happening to me?" He asked, clearly scared.
"I don't know." I looked at my beer. "I don't know. Maybe it's some kind of late growth spurt or something."
"I'm twenty-eight years old! I haven't grown any taller since I graduated from high school. Now I've grown an inch in just a week!"
I didn't know what to say. "I think you're sexy tall." That was no lie. As hyper-masculine as he was, it always seemed to me that he ought to be at least six-foot-three or "four.
"What if this keeps up? I'm wearing your clothes now, but if I grow much more I won't be able to fit into anything."
"You've probably stopped growing."
"How do you know? I weighed 183 pounds on Wednesday, and now I'm 188! That's five pounds in just two fucking days!"
"But you're taller, too. It's not like you're getting fat or anything."
"I know that. If anything, I'm getting leaner. I can see my abs better now than I could a week ago." I had noticed that as well. He had a more ripped look to him in the last few days. As we talked, a part of me kept thinking how wonderful it was that he was now as tall as I. Sitting across from him at a booth in the bar, I loved seeing him so tall. We were eye-to-eye where before he had been ever so slightly shorter. Lenny looked even better at this height than he had at five-eleven.
"Look," I said. "There's nothing we can do about it. You can't possibly go on growing forever. That's ridiculous. So we'll get you some new clothes, and you'll be a bigger man. Don't you think it's kind of great, in a way? Don't you like being a little taller?"
He smiled then, looking into his beer, and I saw that despite his natural fear of the odd changes in his body, he did rather like his new size. "Yeah," he laughed. "I guess I do. I feel… I don't know, more powerful or something. I feel like people looking at me see a big man."
"Well," I laughed, "Six feet tall isn't that big."
We eventually talked of other things, then left the bar to go to my place. Sex with him had never been better.
But Lenny didn't stop growing. By Sunday, Lenny had gained another five pounds and an inch. Now my clothes were a bit too small for him, and he had to wear a pair of my sweatpants, which looked great on him. Just a week ago he had weighed 175 pounds. Now he weighed 193. In the same time that he had gained 18 pounds, he had grown two inches taller. Now Lenny indeed looked big. Not just tall, but big. His muscles bulged a bit and even clothes couldn't hide his size. A baggy sweatshirt hid his very broad chest, but the span of his shoulders was handsomely visible. I shared his concern (where would this stop?), but I also thrilled at how sexy he was. My partner Lenny, a gorgeous man if ever there was one, was now a very large man as well. Did I like big men? Yes.
Lenny called in sick on Monday. He couldn't let anyone see how big he was. While I was at work, he drove (wearing my baggiest clothes… even my shoes were tight on him now) to the capital to shop for large, cheap clothes. Sweatpants, loose boxers, extra-large T-shirts, etc. Hopefully, they would last him until he stopped growing.
When I came home from work that day, he seemed even larger still. He was at his own house, and I went there and brought dinner: a family bucket from KFC.
"I bought a scale while I was out today," he volunteered. (We had been using one in the gym to track his growth.) "And?" I asked, after he said nothing more.
"195 pounds. And I'm taller than six-one." He nodded to a place on the wall where we had been marking his height for the last five days, ever since we noticed the growth. There was a new mark there, about a half inch higher than the one from just 24 hours previously.
His appetite seemed to be larger, too. I ate only three pieces of chicken and he finished off the rest of the bucket.
How handsome he was! Lenny was now a very big, swarthy man. He could easily have intimidated men with a look. He was not yet what you might call a hulking man, but I expected that in a few days he just might be that. While he finished eating, I just took in his manliness. His shock of black hair was a little unkempt and boyish looking. He had shaved before I came home from work, so his face was smooth and brown. His large upper arms, probably 18 inches around now, pulled tight the short sleeves of the black T-shirt he wore. His shoulders were broad and rounded. To me he looked like a super-hero in street-clothes.
After dinner we enjoyed long, slow sex. You might not think two or three inches in height would be that noticeable, but it was. I was so used to his body that the extra size was a marvelous transformation. It was still the same old Lenny, same tattoo, same freckle on his abdomen near his navel, same thick cock with the slight bend in the middle when it was hard. Well, not quite the same thick cock. It had grown proportionally, too. That was only a small increase in size, but now it was just a tad too large for me to take in completely in my mouth. When he began to face-fuck me, my lips didn't quite reach the base of his shaft as they used to, even when he thrust himself deep into my throat.
We didn't have anal sex much, but tonight we did. After I sucked him off and he sucked me off, he wanted more. We were on a roll, had been going for a couple of hours, so I thought, what the hell. Let him fuck my ass.
Could I feel the difference this time? You bet. Not in his length, as I could when I sucked him off, but in his thickness. He had been thick enough before that it was a tight fit in my ass. Now he was so big that I had to loosen up for about fifteen minutes before I could take him in. But when I did, it was fantastic. Pleasure and pain. The size of him. And best of all, the heavy weight of his body. For while he had only gained about two or three inches in height—an increase of maybe 4 percent—he had put on 20 pounds by now—that's more than 10 percent of his weight. It was a weight that I was happy to have lie on me. After sex, I caressed his broad, hairy chest while he dozed off.
Part III: Lenny Grows Even More
As a phys ed teacher, I knew a fair amount about height and weight proportions, and I had also been good in math at school. When, two days later, Lenny tipped the scales at an even 200 pounds, I decided to try to figure out if there was a pattern to his growth, and whether it would slow down or stop. It certainly didn't seem to be slowing.
A chart we'd kept of his height and weight showed that he was gaining about five pounds every two days and that hadn't slowed. He was also growing about an inch every three days, and that didn't seem to be slowing either. But his rate of increase in height was a smaller percentage than his rate of increase in weight—which made sense, since a small increase in height means that weight has to be distributed over every part of the body.
Though I couldn't foresee whether it would slow down or not, I made a prediction about how big Lenny would become in the future. It was a bit alarming. On the Friday which began our Christmas break at school (two weeks since he'd begun to grow), I came home and shared my findings with him. Every time I came home (I was now staying at his home) I was taken aback by his presence. He still had the boyish hair and the friendly, open smile. But he looked more man than ever and was beginning to intimidate even me. On this day when I came home, he was about three inches taller than I was.
After a dinner of pasta and vegetables, we munched on more veggie snacks while I told him what I'd figured out. "You're growing at an almost constant rate of two a half pounds a day. The change in your height seems constant, but I expect it's really slowing down just a little bit. That's because your body is maintaining its proportions.
"If you go on growing like this, then by Christmas you'll weigh 220 pounds and be 6 foot 4 and a half inches tall." That wasn't so scary. But Christmas was only five days away. "On New Year's Day, you'll weigh 235 pounds and be over 6 foot 6."
Lenny didn't show too much concern. He had gotten over the initial panicky feeling of being out of control of his body's growth. Indeed, I knew he rather liked his new, larger frame. But we were both worried about the day when he would be so large that he couldn't go out in public without alarming people or drawing the attention of the news media. He voiced this problem. "Is it going to slow down? Will I ever be, like, eight feet tall or anything?"
I handed him the printout from my computer spreadsheet. He took it in his large hands and read down the columns. "On January 23 I'll reach 7 feet tall… and on March 21 I'll be 8 feet tall."
I looked at Lenny but said nothing.
"What will happen in a year or two? You know, what about when I'm 40 or 50?" The chart only charted his growth through the middle of the next year. But I had had these questions, too, and had done the calculations.
I paused before telling him. "In two years, you'll be over 13 feet tall and you'll weigh 2000 pounds." I let that sink in before going on. After all, that was after only two years of growth. "Ten years later, when you're 40, you'll be 22 feet tall and you'll weigh over 9000 pounds. By the time you're 50, if this growth keeps on even then, you'll be almost 28 feet tall… and you'll weigh over 18 thousand pounds." I didn't need to add that that was 9 tons. He'd be the size of an 18-wheel truck by then.
"shit," Lenny whispered. He realized, as I did, that it was not at all too soon (indeed it may already have been too late) to begin making plans for a different future. Clearly he could not stay here as groundskeeper. We had to find a place to put him where he would never be seen. Or, if possible, a place where he would be loved and respected as a person and given freedom and privacy to move about. But where could there possibly be such a place? And how on earth could we get him there?
"Yeah, I know," I said, answering his thought. "We've got to get you somewhere far from here. And first we've got to get some money." Neither of us had much money. We rented our houses. We hadn't any savings to speak of. "We've got to do it now," he said. "I mean, like, tomorrow. If we wait even another week…" he glanced at the chart I'd given him. "… I'll be 6 foot 5 already. That's not weird or anything, but it sure draws attention."
"First let's worry about getting some money fast, because we'll need that once we leave and try to find a place where you can live. Then we'll also have time to think about where you can go."
I have a very good work ethic, and it pained me greatly to write a letter to the school announcing that I was quitting my job on very short notice after I'd just begun. I wrote one for Lenny, too, and then wrote to our landlords canceling our leases. Neither of us had any very close relatives or friends, so that was okay. Lenny wanted to tell his mother something, but he decided to wait until we'd made some decision before doing that. And he couldn't tell her the truth, of course. When he realized he may never see his mother again, he wept, and it was the first time I saw him show any emotion over his growth other than fear, wonder, and pleasure.
The next morning we put much of what we owned in the back of Lenny's pickup and headed to California. With Lenny's amazing good looks and his increasingly wondrous dimensions, he ought to be able to make a quick small fortune in the porn film industry.
Part IV: We Go to California
It took us four days to drive to California. In all the days of our adventure, these were the happiest four. We were in love and now living out the secret fantasy many people have to just abandon their lives and seek their fortunes elsewhere. We were running off to join the circus, as it were. (And as it turned out, "the circus" was an apt name for the porn industry.) During those days, we stayed in cheap motels, ate at cheap restaurants, and a couple of times went to bars at night. We both found that we liked the frequent looks we received. Women gazed longingly at Lenny (and a few tried to hit on him) and men had a hard time hiding their envy at his very compelling masculine features… and of course, his size. En route, Lenny passed the 6 foot 4 mark. He became taller than 98 percent of the men in America.
In one restaurant, an obviously gay couple kept looking at us and pretending not to. I flattered myself that my own athletic appearance was part of the reason they kept looking, and maybe it was. But mostly it was because of Lenny. Just the smile on his swarthy rugged face had snared my own attention those months ago when I met him on the soccer field. Now it sat, as charming as ever, on top of a mound of well-muscled man, with hair peeking out from his shirt collar as well. His large hands had black hair on the backs. I had always rather liked his strong hands. Now they were sexy enough I got hard just looking at them. And this man was all mine!
I have not mentioned that Lenny and I had bonded in those short months as the best of partners do. We were lovers and friends and confidants, and we trusted one another utterly. I knew without a doubt that Lenny was my soul mate, and he knew the same of me. It was part of the delight of those four days of travel that while we enjoyed envious gazes, we were secure in one another's love.
On our last night of travel we stayed in a motel somewhere in Nevada. The desert was warm during the day, even in December, and quite cold at night. In our room, I did a strip tease for Lenny (for though I have not mentioned it much, he was at least as in love with my body as I was with his, if that is possible), flexing my pecs and my biceps for him. Then I tried to take off his clothes and he, playfully, tried to keep them on, though all he wore just then was a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants. I could feel his raging hard-on under the sweatpants he had on (my own, of course, flopped visibly) yet still he protected his body from my groping hands. At last he relented and let me remove his clothes. The extra-large T-shirt came off and exposed his massive chest and big, hard abdomen, and I almost creamed at the sight alone. Then I slowly removed his pants and lay my own body upon his, my chest pressed against his, my hard member pulsing next to his larger one. I wrapped my legs under his and my arms around his so as to squeeze my body even closer to his. The smell of his body excited me more and I licked his hairy chest so I could taste his salty, musky skin.
We played around for a half-hour or so before I decided I wanted to worship his huge feet, a pleasure I had taken rarely these two weeks since he began growing. He now had about size 14 feet, though the shoes he'd worn that day were a pair of 16 sneakers that we'd snapped up as soon as we saw them, knowing that they would be hard to come by later… and that he'd need them pretty soon. His toes were large things, manly digits as long as a small man's fingers. I sucked on his right big toe and rubbed the dry sole of his foot with my fingers. Lenny, meanwhile, was fondling my ass and fingering around my hole. When I began sucking on his other big toe, he inserted a finger into my ass to loosen me up. I knew he was in the mood to fuck me tonight. When he did fuck me, it really hurt for the first time. It was a hurt that also brought ecstasy, but I knew that in a week or so, he would be too big for me altogether. If he was much thicker, he'd injure me. Knowing that, I savored the agony of Lenny inside me as long as I could. He fucked me while I masturbated myself, and we had the rare pleasure of coming at the same time. I realized that we probably had just about the best sex of anyone in the world. That was quite a feat.
So on to Southern California. It was surprisingly easy to find porn houses. There were dozens of them, and they all were happy to look for new talent. This turned out to be quite advantageous, because as Lenny continued growing, we planned to keep making films, but we didn't want people to notice the growth. So only three or four days at any one film house was possible at a time. But that should allow us about nine weeks before Lenny hit 7-foot-6. We had made that our cutoff height. Once he was that tall, he would not be safe from the media. We had about nine weeks to make as much money as we could and split this town. During that time we would have to figure out where to go. Right now, we didn't know.
When we walked in the offices of "Spurs Video" we knew we had a job. The secretary looked Lenny up and down (and even gave me a favorable look as well) and told us that "Jack" would want to see us right away. And so he did. Jack was the producer, director, and owner of "Spurs Video" and though were glad about our near certainty of getting a job here, a fear we both shared was the growing feeling that "a small fortune" was being optimistic at this place. We might get a few hundreds of dollars for performing for the camera, but tens of thousands seemed hopeless at this joint.
"Howdy, fellas," said Jack. "You sure are strapping young men. Lucy tells me you're interested in auditioning for us here at Spurs."
"That's right," I answered. "My name's Ford and this is Martin, and we'd like to be in your movies." We had agreed days ago that we would never show anyone any ID or use our real names unless we had to for some reason. Jack never asked for any ID. The only think he wanted us to show him was our cocks.
Right there in his office, we both pulled down our pants. My dick hung a limp 4 inches, but its potential was evident. Lenny's was 6 inches even when not very hard, and its potential was clearly even greater.
"Well, you've got some good stuff there, boys. Let's see what the rest of you looks like. Can you take off the rest of your clothes for me?"
We didn't hesitate. I removed my shoes and socks so I could take off my pants while Lenny just took the sweats off over his shoes. (He wore no socks.) Then off with our shirts, and we both stood there in our birthday suits before Jake in all our glory, though most of the glory was Lenny—s.
"Hmm," said Jake. "Yes sir." He began to rub his crotch, and we saw that he had a hard-on, though not a very big one. "You're in good shape, all right. Work out?"
Lenny said, "Yes," though he really didn't, and I said, "I was a minor league baseball player for three years," though I never was.
"Really? What team?"
"Memphis Chicks," I answered, thinking quickly. Did that team exist any more? I wasn't sure. Jake didn't seem to care. He was unabashedly unbuckling his own pants in front of us now. As we stood there, he took his hard little prick in hand and began to stroke it. "Martin, Ford, if you want a job here, I also need to see what you look like in action. Show me what you can do."
We looked at one another. This was somewhat uncomfortable, but also a little fun. The exhibitionist in us was coming out. "What do you want us to do?" I asked.
Jake looked mildly irritated. "What do you think I want you to do? I want the giant one to fuck you up the ass!" I had done most of the talking and I guess he assumed that Lenny was stupid or something. Though he was absolutely gorgeous, the way his eyebrows almost met over his slightly crooked nose could perhaps give the impression of a simpleton. I hadn't thought of that ever before.
Though I knew Lenny's dick would be even a little bit thicker than it had been just the previous night, I told him to go for it. We started by standing facing one another, my eyes at Lenny's chin. I leaned forward and kissed his neck while rubbing his back. Lenny began fingering my asshole and we both grew very hard. Jake watched intently and stroked himself almost absent-mindedly as our lovemaking rapidly intensified.
Lenny pressed his dick against my asshole but didn't penetrate yet. He allowed his pre-cum to lubricate the opening before going on. I felt its wetness against my hole as the warm cockhead pressed and rubbed all around. I closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like if… no, when… Lenny was twenty feet tall. How big would he be then? Two feet long? Three feet long? Probably too big to fuck a horse, much less a person. I would be the last person Lenny would ever fuck, I supposed, and it would happen here in this town. It might even happen in this very office. If he hurt me too badly this time, I'd have to tell Jake that we were strictly for blowjobs, unless he wanted to find somebody else Lenny could fuck.
Eventually I was relaxed enough Lenny could enter me. I gasped (it was not an act) as he thrust deeper and deeper. I felt him filling me, hurting me, yet it felt extremely good. He thrust in and out several times before I felt him come and begin to soften. Then Jake stood up and spat on his relatively puny dick, rubbed it extra hard for a few seconds, and then it squirted one little spasm of come out before calling it quits. I might have laughed at the contrast between him and Lenny had I not been in such agony.
Needless to say, we got the job.
Part V: The Porn Industry and the Height Limit
So that's how our strange career in the gay porn industry began. We made less money than I'd hoped before arriving in California, but more than I'd feared when we walked into Jake's office.
The day after we auditioned for Jack was Christmas Eve. Normally, he said, he gives his employees Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off. But when we told him we were only going to be in town for three or four days and we really wanted to make some films now, he relented. It turned out the people we worked with were happy about it because Jake gave them extra pay for working through the holidays.
Besides two cameramen (one was actually a woman), two other actors were called in to (ahem) shoot with us. If you watch gay porn, you'll know them. Bull Davis and Harry Mann. They turned out to be really nice guys, not at all like you'd think after watching their movies. The four of us had dinner one night at an Italian restaurant that the two of them recommended, and they gave us the scoop about the porn industry. Without giving too much away, we hinted that we wanted to "try out" several different studios in the area in the next few weeks. They named a bunch for us and told us how much we could expect to get paid, how much we'd like working with the people there, what kind of films we'd be asked to make, and so on. It was an interesting evening.
When the cameras were rolling, they became their film personalities. Bull is hung like a horse, as you may know, and his gimmick is shocking people with his size and making them suck him off. In our first film, he and Lenny were a couple of bikers and I was an unsuspecting innocent whom they stopped in a dark alley one night and made service them.
The previous evening in our motel Lenny and I had discussed how we felt about having sex with strangers. There was the disease aspect of it, but as it turns out, people in the porn industry these days mostly play it safe. They film at odd angles sometimes and cut footage to make it look like there's no condom, but whenever assfucking is going on, there's a condom there, believe me. So that was all right.
But there was also the emotional aspect of it. We were bound to one another as partners and lovers. Would he mind me sucking someone else off? Would I mind him fucking some porn star? The answer in the end was, no. We knew that there were no feelings involved. It would be a different kind of sex. Fun and novel, it would allow our exhibitionist tendencies their greatest expression. And we might learn a few things from the pros. So that was all right too.
While I was servicing Lenny the biker (whose stage name became "Martin Long"), Harry Mann strolled in all dressed in leather, and I had to let him fuck me while I sucked Lenny off. Not normally being into anything at all kinky, this was my very first three-way, which of course became a four-way. My first sex experience with more than one partner was being filmed (taped, actually) for all the world to see. The movie lasted about 45 minutes and was named, badly in my opinion, "Leather All the Way". ("Introducing new stars Chris Godwin and Big Man MARTIN LONG!") It ended with me joining the ranks of Bull, Martin and Harry and riding off into the sunset in my own leather outfit.
We learned from Jake that there are several "types" of porn stars, and the name has to match the type. "Bull" was a good name for him because he was a big aggressive character. "Harry" was an obvious name because he was a very hairy man. He wasn't a big man, though. Indeed, he was quite the shortest of the four of us in that video, though we were frequently altering our positions to make that less obvious on tape.
Lenny—Martin—was new, so his character was in the experimenting stage, but "Martin Long" was a play on the comedian Martin Short's name, with the obvious implication that he was hung. Jake thought it would do well for a first time name.
Jake, Harry, and Bull all said I was obviously the "boy-next-door" type. Athletic and attractive, sweet and innocent. Fair-skinned with very little body hair. Characters like these tended to play roles like the one I just played, getting introduced to great sex for the first time. And they always have nice-guy sounding names. Real names, too. "Chris Godwin" was actually on a list of about ten names Jake had had before I arrived. He'd been waiting for the right actor to take it, and he said the name fit me perfectly.
Lenny and I each got $350 for that video. That wasn't too bad at all. If we could do at least that well every day, we'd have over thirty thousand dollars between us by the time we had to leave.
We actually stayed with Spurs for six more days, making eight videos in all and earning $6000 even. Lenny had reached 6 foot 5 and had gained 20 pounds, but if anybody noticed, they didn't say so until the sixth day, when Bull said, "I know it's crazy, but I could swear you look an inch taller than you did just last week!" We knew it was time to move on.
So we visited a lot of different porn houses in the next few weeks. We found that as Lenny grew bigger, the salary he could command grew bigger as well. At our fourth studio, which would have been "MondoMan" I guess, he walked in the door an impressive 6 foot 7 inches tall, and he weighed 270 pounds. He enjoyed the attention he got from everyone there, but it worried me. It meant that the day was not too far off when he couldn't walk down the street any more.
But at MondoMan, we made four more videos in four days and earned an even $7000, of which $1800 was mine, the rest Lenny—s. They gave him a new stage name, "Mondo Jack", which was evidently a kind of honor, since no one in the studio's history had shared the name "Mondo" with the studio. MondoMan's actors were big and hung men. Even at 6 feet tall and 185 pounds, I was smaller than all of them… but Lenny was the biggest.
But we couldn't stay. He saw someone staring at him with a puzzling, thoughtful look on the fourth day, and figured it was time to move on before arousing suspicion. He had climbed to 6 foot 8 by then.
We spent three days at Colt Studio, where they do only photography. They were delighted to get "Martin" (we'd gone back to his earlier stage name). I wasn't their type, really, so I got a little break for a few days. I wasn't insulted at all. I knew they wanted only extremely muscular men and the taller the better. Lenny was not only a towering figure by now, but his muscles bulged like he'd been a weightlifter for years. One thing they didn't like was his tan, which was lighter on his torso and crotch than on his arms and legs. They had make-up artists correct that with a body tan cream. They also had a long debate about whether to trim his eyebrows or not. Trimmed, they would certainly be closer to what is traditionally considered attractive. Untrimmed, it made him look a little wilder, more like an animal. In the end, respecting the majority opinion of their staff, they decided to leave the eyebrows. I was glad. I liked Lenny's face the way it was.
I met some of the Colt models I'd seen over the years, and it was quite interesting. Some were nice men; a couple were totally full of themselves. I went out for lunch with Pete Kuzak one afternoon when Lenny was shooting. He was a terrifically funny guy, and very charismatic. I asked why he didn't go into regular Hollywood acting. He said he just liked this lifestyle better, didn't want to be an actor.
Several Colt models were a lot shorter than you'd think. Carl Hardwick is a shorter-than-average man, though you certainly wouldn't know from any of his Colt pictures. Lenny later told me that they made a point of photographing him, Lenny, in doorways and on chairs and holding objects like a deck of cards and a Coke bottle so his size would be clear. He could hold two decks of playing cards in one hand and wrap his fingers around them completely, hiding them both. There was at Colt one room full of special props, with everything a little undersized, so that short models could be made to look taller. Lenny did no photo shoots there, but he did visit the room with some of the staff, who were amused but also awed by how gigantic he looked. He had to duck under the lower doorsill to enter and he hit his head on the ceiling when he stood up in the room. Sitting on a small chair, his knees came up to his chin. For everyone else, it was just a laugh. For me and Lenny it was a preview of what was surely to come in reality.
One entire day they spent photographing him in the woods in and on a big Chevy pickup. The photographer who did that shoot was just ecstatic, and said that Lenny would almost certainly be their most popular model in the new year. We hadn't yet told Colt that we were there for just a few days. The director of the studio looked a bit worried when Lenny asked to be paid in cash, but he gave in anyway. We both now had fake ID's Jake had made for us back at Spurs. Martin Long and Chris Godwin. That was all we needed to get employment.
By now you know exactly what Lenny looks like if you're a collector of gay porn video or Colt's photo sets. In the past few months, I've seen several of Lenny's Colt photos from that day in January posted on the web. "HUGE GUY!"
"This man is a GIANT!"
"MARTIN LONG IS THE GREATEST!" And my story's not too hard to prove either. Just get together videos with Martin Long made by eight or ten different studios (sometimes under a different name like "Mondo Jack"), and watch him change size before your eyes. You'll see me in there too, by the way, but I'm not nearly so memorable.
So Lenny grew and we, with increasing nervousness, continued to make videos and money, until he hit the 7-foot mark on January 23. We entered a drug store to use a pay scale late that afternoon. A group of children gathered around us oohing and aahing and trying to guess Lenny's weight before he put in a quarter. There were squeals of surprise and joy when the scale stopped at 330 pounds. That night we discussed whether we should still wait until he reached seven and a half feet tall, or whether we should leave now. We wanted to leave, but we still didn't have much of an idea where we would go. We'd talked about it almost every day, but we were no closer to a decision than we'd been back in Ohio. All we knew was, it had to be far away from any big city. If so many people knew about Lenny that they followed his growth, he'd end up in a government laboratory in no time, we figured. That wasn't what Lenny wanted, of course.
We finally decided that unless we got some better idea, then we'd stay until Lenny hit 7-foot-6, then we'd drive to Alaska and live together in a remote place somewhere. I'd had a friend who'd grown up in Alaska, and he said his home was so far away from anyone else that he couldn't even go to school. The state paid for him to take dozens of correspondence courses. Such a place would be right for us. It looked like we might end up with over $40,000 by the time we left, and with that we could at least start a life in Alaska. I could find some job there to keep us going; maybe Lenny could too, even. Something where he didn't have to come into contact with people. He had quite a bit of skill with his hands, though it would soon be difficult for him to work with any tools made for ordinary people.
What we didn't know, still being basically outsiders, was that all of the porn industry, gay and straight, was buzzing about Lenny, and even some agents of more mainstream films had heard about The Giant and wanted to talk with him. And a few people had begun to put two and two together. I can imagine the stories they must have shared. "He was at least 6-foot-8!"
"No he wasn't. He was tall, but no taller than 6-6, I know. Duke is 6-6 and he was taller than Martin."
"Look at these photographs!"
"Those can be faked."
"I met Martin and there's no way he was under 7 feet tall."
We really were being very stupid. Long before Lenny hit 7-foot-6 and 400 pounds, someone must have told the mainstream media about us. We increasingly had the feeling we were being watched, though we couldn't justify it. Lenny was 5 inches taller than seven feet on Valentine's Day and we were taking a day off from work. We figured we could afford it now, and we were making plans for leaving in just a few days. Dinner that evening was to be in a romantic spot, but were having lunch at a diner when a man approached us at our booth and said he'd like to ask Lenny some questions.
"I'm eating right now," he said not-too-politely. He even gave the man a very intimidating look. He was sitting down, but he did not have to look up to meet the man eye-to-eye. Most men would have cowered, and this guy did take a step back and dropped his fake smile for a moment. But he was a reporter and was not going to be put off.
"I promise I won't take but a moment of your time. How long have you been in Hollywood, Mr. Long?"
Lenny suddenly shot up from where he was sitting and stood next to the man, towering over him. The man was of average height, which meant he was about eye-level with the bottom of Lenny's chest. Lenny pushed him and said loudly, "I SAID I'm EATING RIGHT NOW. FUCK OFF."
The man said nothing but turned to leave, visibly trembling. And we knew that it was past time for us to leave, too.
Part VI: Alaska, and Frank
The very next day we checked out of our motel—the same one we'd been in for the entire eight weeks we'd been in this town—packed Lenny's pickup with our stuff, and drove off. It felt so very like the day we left Ohio, it almost brought tears. I knew Lenny thought of his mother from time to time and how bad she would feel when he never came to see her any more. He must also have thought of his groundskeeping job, which he'd had for a number of years. I was giving up a lot less than he was. Plus, I always had the chance to come back. We spoke very little during the first few hours of the trip, but after lunch in a Burger King outside Bakersfield (where a little kid asked for his autograph; not, I assumed, because he'd seen any of Lenny's movies!) we began talking more. We seemed to have escaped the press attention, we were back on the road, and the weather was cold but clear. Leaving Hollywood actually felt to us both like a great weight had been removed from us. We were outdoor men, and posing and acting was not for us. I reached over and rubbed Lenny's giant thigh. We were happy.
Our trip north was rather uneventful. Though we had $41,000 in cash, we knew we were likely to need it wherever we ended up, so we lived conservatively. We stayed in cheap motels and ate a lot of fast food. Lenny seemed not to have to worry about his physique. No matter what he ate, he didn't get fat. His muscles just grew with his frame and he stayed quite ripped looking. I on the other hand found myself getting a little bit more rounded than I'd been before, and I resumed running in the mornings as I had in Ohio. That made me feel so much better that I wondered why I hadn't done it in Hollywood.
Everywhere we went, Lenny got stares. But he didn't look like a freak, just an incredibly huge man. There were other men in the country as tall as he was. Two or three, anyway. And now that the fear had subsided, we both began to enjoy the stares again. Lenny's extremely friendly face gave people the courage to approach him, and invariably they'd ask him how tall he was and sometimes how much he weighed. Did he play basketball? Was he in the movies? Was I his brother? There were some odd questions, too. Was he from Russia? Was he a Scorpio? Was he the guy in the monster costume in some movie? Lenny answered all these questions good-naturedly, and we usually got to eat in peace. And of course, every night we thoroughly enjoyed the time we had together alone in a motel room.
I had once believed that sex couldn't get any better than what it was with Lenny. Yet I found it increasingly enjoyable the bigger he grew, until I eventually figured I was one of the lucky few who would just get to enjoy sex more and more as I grew older instead of less and less. During our trip north, which took about two weeks, Lenny grew to almost 7-foot-9 and 450 pounds. His weight had not continued to grow linearly as I'd predicted back in December, but had gradually accelerated. But he also had built (proportionally) more muscle during that time. I sometimes pulled out the old spreadsheet printout I'd made then and compared it with his new dimensions, which we recorded whenever we were able to. I'd almost exactly predicted his height, but I was about 50 pounds under in my weight prediction. But I thought Lenny would have weighed about 400 pounds if he'd had the same build as the groundskeeper I'd met. Now he looked more like a bodybuilder than a groundskeeper, and the extra 50 pounds were understandable.
In early March it was quite cold and rainy in the Northwest. It was a rainy day when we got on a 48-hour ferry from Washington to Alaska. We rather enjoyed the rain. It kept people indoors and obscured their view of us a bit, giving us a little more privacy than we were used to when we were out on the deck. I didn't even come up to Lenny's shoulders. When we stood at the railing on the ferry, it came up to my chest but only to Lenny's waist. How I loved my huge friend! I gave him a hug in the rain and thought I couldn't be any happier.
Our room in the ferry was uncomfortably small. It would have been even a tad small for two ordinary adults, but when Lenny was in there, I just couldn't move around. And the ceiling was low enough that he had to stoop when he was in the room, which is why he spent a good deal of time out in the rain. Worst of all, the bunks were only a little over six feet long. Lenny's entire calf hung off the edge when he stretched out in the bed. Sleeping with him would be impossible in these conditions, but before we went to sleep each night, I did lie on him in bed and kiss his whole enormous body all over. Sometimes he'd lie on top of me, and although his bulk nearly crushed me, I delighted in it. This mountain of flesh that was my soul mate would press his lips to mine, his chest hair tickling me, and my own dick would be mashed against his hard abdomen, while his huge cock was free between my legs.
Lenny didn't fuck me in the ass any more. Not since our first day in California. And when he fucked my mouth, I couldn't possibly take him all in. He was the size of a huge banana, and when he stuck himself down my throat, my lips couldn't even feel his pubic hair tickling as it once did. But evidently I still knew how to please, because Lenny was as lusty as ever and I think longed for each sexual encounter with me even more than I did.
It was on this first ferry ride that we met Frank. On the second day, we were having breakfast in the somewhat crowded restaurant, and he asked if he could join us. We said sure.
"Rains a lot, don't it?" He asked.
"Yeah, it seems to," Lenny answered.
"Where are you boys from?" It was funny that he called us "boys". My grandmother used to call every man under 40 a boy. Frank looked to be about 60 years old. His face was the friendliest, most open face I'd seen in months, except for Lenny—s.
"We're from Ohio," said Lenny, and though we'd agreed not to reveal much about ourselves, we both found Frank to be so kind and friendly that we didn't mind talking to him at all.
"I'm from Alaska," he said. "Grew up there. You boys ever been?"
We said we hadn't.
"Oh, you'll like it. It ain't a bad time of year to be going. A bit cold, though. Don't get warm until June. You going to be okay, son?" This last question was aimed at Lenny, who had a very large raincoat, but no warm clothes.
"Yes, sir, I'll be okay. I've got some warm clothes packed in my pickup."
"Well, that's good. I guess a fella… like you finds it hard to find clothes that fit!" He smiled and chuckled, but he didn't seem to want an answer, and it was the first time I could remember that someone had commented on Lenny's size in such a friendly, sympathetic way. He didn't ask how tall he was or stare open-jawed at him. Lenny and I glanced at one another and shared a thought. Here was a man we might possibly be able to trust. It's funny how you can just tell in someone's face whether you can rely on him or not. This man's face was that of a man who would die before breaking a promise.
"I'm Carter," I volunteered, and reached to shake his hand.
"Frank Ayre here." His handshake was firm and agreeable. Then he turned to Lenny.
"Lenny Taylor, pleased to meet you," said my giant friend, and Frank said, "Pleasure's mine."
"What are you boys plannin… to do in Alaska, if you don't mind my askin—?"
Again we glanced at one another. I answered first. "We don't really know, sir. We're looking for work and a place to live. Heard Alaska was a great place to seek your fortune, and all that."
"Well now, that's true, actually. It's hard in some ways, but if you can take the weather and the mosquitoes and the isolation, there's a great rich life for you. And call me Frank. "Sir" makes me feel like I'm 63 years old. Which I am."
Lenny spoke next. "I don't suppose you have any advice about good places to go job hunting, do you? We'd heard about the fishing boats, but I don't know if we really want to do that." We both knew, in fact, that that would be impossible. Fishing trips in Alaska could last for weeks. Enough time for Lenny to grow several inches and arouse quite a bit of suspicion!
Frank shook his head, "Don't you go doin… that. Those fishing boats are slave ships. Work you night and day for weeks for a pauper's salary. Hmmm—" He tapped his coffee mug. "I wonder if old Tom Kellas needs a helper. You boys look like you're strong men and wouldn't mind working out of doors. You ever done any woodworking?"
"No," we both answered, but very excitedly. It sounded as though we might already have found a job! Lenny continued, "But I've used a lot of tools. I was a groundskeeper at a college for eight years."
I added, "I've worked outdoors too. I coached soccer." There was a pause. "And we're both very good learners."
Frank smiled. "Well. I don't know if old Tom needs a hand or not. Like as not, I guess. But seems I did here him grumbling about needing somebody to help him out sometimes. Hmm." Then he explained further. "Tom Kellas is a friend of mine and he's a boatmaker. He makes "em by hand. Lot of hard work making a boat. Used to have a partner… help him," he glanced at us for a fraction of a second when he said partner, and I knew what he was thinking. Tom and his "partner" were gay, and Frank saw that we were, too. "But that fella… just left one day. Now Tom's trying to get by working alone, but it ain't easy. Hmm."
Eagerly, I pressed him. "Do you think he'd give us a chance? Try us out? I know we could be a big help."
"Well, it's worth a phone call, anyway. When we get to port, I'll give him a ring and see what he thinks. I'm a pretty good reader of faces, and my guess is you two are honest men. I think you would be good workers." He smiled at us again, and I knew then, really knew, that we had the first friend we could trust with our secret. But I wasn't going to volunteer it. Lenny had to decide that.
Part VII: Settling In
Tom was agreeable. He'd let us work for him for a month, see how it worked out, and then maybe let us keep on working. What's more, Frank said we could rent from him and his wife Lucy a house that was about five miles from Tom's place. "Plenty of open air, you'll like that. And a high ceiling in the living room," he added, smiling at Lenny.
We took a second ferry from Juneau to Anchorage, then followed Frank in his own pickup for hundreds of miles inland. Near Fairbanks, we turned west and drove to a town on the Yukon river. It looked like its population numbered in the tens. We went in a store and helped Frank pick up various staples in huge quantities. The storekeeper opened his eyes rather wide when he saw Lenny walk in, but he quickly composed himself and never showed another trace of interest. We later learned that in Alaska, people strictly respect rules of etiquette, such as not staring at a huge person. In a place with so few people, I guess, the importance of friendly relationships is escalated by several degrees of magnitude.
Then it was off to Frank's home. We'd now spent five days with Frank, and Lenny was pushing 7-foot-10. But I don't think Frank noticed the change. What's one more inch on a giant like Lenny? When we arrived at the house (a beautiful chalet, really), Frank's wife Lucy came outside to meet us. She, like her husband, had an open and friendly face that charmed us immediately.
"Lucy, these are the young men I told you about who'll be working with Tom for a while."
"Well, they certainly are strapping, aren't they?" She giggled and reached with both hands to shake Lenny's. His Goliath hands completely swallowed hers. He had to be very gentle, I guessed, not to hurt her. Certainly if he'd shaken her hands with even half his strength, he'd have broken some of her fingers. But she joyfully shook his hands and smiled, then took mine and smiled just as warmly as I introduced myself.
"Don't you start bringing things indoors, Frank. That can wait until we've had some coffee. Do you boys like coffee?"
"Yes, Ma—am," answered Lenny, and she bustled into the house to make some. While she did that, Frank walked us around to the back of the house where there was a patio overlooking the most gorgeous valley I'd ever seen. The Yukon River lay a couple of miles below and the view of it was clear and spectacular. It almost took my breath away. I saw that Lenny, too, felt he was in heaven. The vast open space was perfect for a man who might someday be twenty feet tall. This, too, must be going through his head.
Lucy came out with the coffee in a few minutes, and soon the four of us were sitting chatting as if we were old friends. She'd invited Tom Kellas over to meet us, and he would be there in an hour or so. In the meantime, we savored the joy of real friendship, something I don't think either of us had ever felt so strongly, even when we were in Ohio. We learned then that Lucy and Frank owned nearly two thousand acres of land in the area; it had been in their family ever since the gold rush, when one of Frank's distant ancestors from the east struck it rich and decided to buy property up here. They were both writers, had met at a writers" convention when they were much younger, and had married. They each still published a bit, but increasingly they just enjoyed the land, the air, and the outdoors.
"Old" Tom Kellas, when arrived, turned out not to be old at all, but probably only about five years my senior. He may have been Lenny's age, though it was hard to tell, for his skin looked a bit weathered by his time spent outdoors. He smiled only a little, yet still I read in his face the same honesty shared by Frank and Lucy.
"Pleased to meet you," he told us both, and never once showed any sign that he'd even noticed that Lenny stood almost two feet taller than he. Their handshake took place at the level of Tom's face, with Lenny having to stoop just a little. Tom was a little shorter than I, but was burlier and more compactly muscled. He looked like he was made of sturdy stuff. His most striking feature was his blond hair, which was only slightly darker on his beard and moustache and arms. I thought that if I didn't have Lenny already, I'd gladly have jumped into this man's arms. His partner who left him must have been a jerk and a fool.
We five spent the entire afternoon chatting away. Then we helped Frank and Lucy unload his pickup. We followed Frank to the house we would rent (as it turns out, for a very long time) and unloaded our own pickup. Tom offered us a couple of days to let us settle in to our place before we came to work, but we eagerly wanted to begin the next day. He smiled just the tiniest bit, showing his pleasure.
Our own house wasn't anything near as luxurious as Frank and Lucy's beautiful chalet. But it was still a delightful home. The living room had very high ceilings, as Frank had said. And the rest of the space was pretty open, allowing a feeling of extra spaciousness that would be very valuable in the coming months and years. The kitchen and dining area opened into each other and the living room with no walls, only a couple of tall wooden support beams. The bedrooms were not large (Lenny would soon outgrow them and have to sleep in the living room) but they were comfortable for me. And we had our own patio much like Frank and Lucy's, overlooking the Yukon River valley.
That night Lenny and I made love on the patio. Even in the open air, we felt more alone than we had in all the motels we'd stayed in for months. Lenny stood before me wearing an enormous XXL sweatshirt that nevertheless was beginning to look a tad small on him. The form of his deep chest was clearly visible under the tight fabric. I hugged him tight, my arms reaching around his waist, my face buried in the middle of his torso, where the letters "UCLA XXL" were printed in big black letters on his shirt.
I could feel his hard dick pressing into my stomach, longing to be released. I squeezed him tighter, then stepped back and slipped my hand into his pants, giving his big penis a little squeeze.
In the cold air, I was reluctant to take off my own clothes, but Lenny didn't seem to mind the cold at all. (A fortunate side-affect of his strange transformation is that he is now much less susceptible to the cold air, and it's not just because of his body hair!) He took off his sweatshirt and I hugged him again, pressing my face tight against the middle of his torso. I tilted my head and leaned down just a little so I could run my face up and down his washboard abs. Here was the finest specimen of a man on the face of the earth, and he was all mine, not just for tonight, but for always. I kissed his tight stomach, sucking on the curly hairs, letting them tickle my lips.
Then I began to unbutton his pants. His huge manhood leapt free at its first opportunity, poking through the fly in his boxer shorts. I no longer had to kneel to suck Lenny off. Indeed, had I knelt before him, his balls would have hung pendulous high over my head. As it was, I just leaned forward and took the head of his cock into my mouth. I didn't try to take in much length but concentrated instead on stimulating his swollen head with my tongue. With my lips I pushed his skin all the way back and then swirled my tongue around and around him. I felt him begin to throb in my mouth.
When he came, it took a great deal of swallowing to clean up his juice. But this I happily did and he moaned with pleasure. Then he did something he'd never done before. He unbuttoned my pants to expose my own hard (comparatively small) member, then lifted me with ease into the air so that he could suck me. Being so totally in his power was rather thrilling to me. He'd lifted me before, but he'd never simply held me up like this while giving me pleasure. I must have weighed no more to him than a book. He showed no sign at all of tiring as I hung there in mid-air, his huge mouth enveloping my dick and balls at the same time. I tensed as I came, and he swallowed my own come and sighed. I looked down at him. Happiness was ours. Or at least it was mine. Did I know how he felt?
"Why did this happen to us, Lenny?" I asked.
"I don't know, Cart," he answered in his deep voice, putting me down.
I hugged him again, pressing my face into his abdomen. "Are you happy?"
Lenny didn't answer for a while, and I didn't press him. I wanted him to be as happy as I was, but we were not in the same situation. I couldn't really understand what he was going through. But finally, he said simply, "Yeah, I'm happy." We said no more after that but just continued to hold one another. He stroked by head, shoulders, and back with his massive hands, and I rubbed his stomach and the sides of his waist. His skin was cool and dry. He was happy.
The next day we began our work with Tom. It was quickly clear to him that we would be valuable workers, very helpful to him in many ways. Especially Lenny, who was so strong he could manipulate huge boards that would have taken both of us to manage. At the end of the third day, Tom told us we could work for him as long as we liked, and he hoped we'd want to stay. We were thrilled. "I think we're going to stay a very long time," I told him, smiling. He didn't smile at that with his mouth, but he smiled with his eyes. "That's good," he said.
The only concern I had was what they would do when it became clear that Lenny was going to keep getting bigger and bigger.
Part VIII: The Secret is Out
Three weeks later, we had learned a remarkable amount about building boats. We had settled comfortably into our home, and we had established a routine with the Ayres of having dinner with them. They insisted that it was not only not troublesome, but was indeed a great pleasure. They loved the company. We were forced to believe in their sincerity and we stopped protesting. Frequently Tom would join us. He lived alone now, and our company and the Ayres" was a great pleasure to him as well, though he also valued the time he spent alone, being something of a loner himself.
Three weeks later, Lenny had also grown almost four inches taller, and the others had to have noticed it. Once I saw Tom studying Lenny's feet to see if he was wearing heeled boots or something. In fact, Lenny was wearing sneakers. It was the largest pair he had (he'd purchased them in Washington before getting on the ferry, and had grown into them quickly) and yet they were tight on his feet now.
After dinner on a Saturday night when all of the "family" were together, we stepped out onto the patio for coffee and dessert. Lenny ducked to go through the door, as he'd had to do since we arrived, but when he straightened up, he scraped his shoulder on the top of the doorframe. A small and low "ouch" was the only sound he made, but everyone looked up and noticed what had happened. I guess all of us had been antsy about this moment. Frank and Lucy and Tom knew something was up, and didn't know how to approach the subject. And Lenny and I were afraid of the day when someone did. It might be the end of our paradise.
"Looks like you scraped yourself, there, Lenny," said Frank. "You all right?"
"Yes, I'm fine, thanks. It doesn't hurt."
No one spoke for a short while.
Then Frank said, "Looks like you must have hit your growth spurt and never stopped!" We both looked at him and felt floods of relief when we saw that he was smiling and chucking. He didn't seem to be upset by this at all! This mysterious growth was nothing more to him than a funny oddity, like a friend with an unusual laugh or a habit of drumming his fingers!
Lucy added her support by saying, "Remember my cousin Lionel who kept growing right through college! And we thought his sister would never stop! She's over six feet tall now!" That Lenny was nearly 30 and over eight feet tall was clearly a different situation, but her message was clear: you don't have anything to explain to us. We're your friends.
Again there was a pause, as if something was expected of Tom. He finally complied by saying, "Well you can keep on growing as far as I'm concerned," he said to Lenny. "You two are as much help at the shop as three men, and that's no lie. Your strength sure is handy."
There was one last awkward pause as we considered how to thank everyone. Lenny just looked down, embarrassed, and mumbled, "Thanks. Thank you all." Then Lucy eased the tension by offering more coffee all around and getting up to make another pot. Tom immediately started telling Frank about what we'd been doing lately at the boat shop, so that was that. Our secret was out and our friends were okay with it. They probably didn't suspect then that Lenny would never stop growing, but they knew as well as we did that what was best for him was to stay here.
And so began the longest and happiest chapter in our lives. Lenny continued to grow, until eventually he needed new clothes. That's when Lucy invited her friend Marta over, who is an excellent seamstress. Evidently Lucy had warned Marta on the phone what to expect, because while Marta was obviously amazed by Lenny's massive size, she was not shocked. She tried taking measurements of him while standing on a chair, but ended up using a table. Her tape measure was insufficient and a long piece of string had to be found; she held one end while I helped her with the other. Marta promised to have a new set of clothes for him in a few days. She stayed for dinner that evening, though Tom was not with us, and during our usual dessert and coffee on the patio, I found an opportunity to speak with her quietly.
"I think you might just make those clothes a little larger than what you measured," I said.
"Really?" she asked, genuinely amazed. She had to search my face to see if I was serious.
"Yes," I answered. "I don't think he's really stopped growing yet."
"Well isn't that something!" Marta exclaimed. "He's over eight feet tall! You ought to call Mr. Guiness!"
She was joking, but all the same, I quickly said, "No, we don't want to make a big deal of it. We like being here with, you know, no one staring at him."
"Well, if you think he's still growing, I'll make the clothes a little bigger."
"A lot bigger."
At this, she stared at me as if searching for final confirmation of what I was saying. The man would not stop getting bigger. I nodded gravely at her, and she finally collected herself and said, "Well. A lot bigger then. I think I'll make him several outfits he can grow into. He may become a full-time job for me!"
Part IX: Life Goes On
And so he nearly was, for a while. Marta made Lenny about ten different sets of clothes that first year, and the Ayre's happily paid Marta for her time and for the vast quantities of material needed. When he outgrew a set of clothes, she'd take them back and reuse the material to make clothes for the rest of us, ordinary clothes. One shirt of Lenny's could easily make two for me.
A year later, on the first day of spring, Lenny was pushing twelve feet tall. It had long ago become clear to the Ayres, to Tom, and to Marta that Lenny was not going to stop. We no longer ate indoors, but always on the patio, unless it was raining or bitterly cold. Then Lenny and I ate alone in our own dining room where he could sit on the floor and manage to eat of the same table I was sitting at.
That summer, Tom and Lenny and I built an addition to the Ayre's house and to the one we were renting. To the Ayres" house we added a large room with a place where the floor dropped off and a chair of any height could be placed there for Lenny. He could then eat with us and enjoy sitting out on the patio with us for several years, until he topped twenty feet tall. The walls and roof of the room were removable (by someone big enough to manage it) so it could be converted into a second patio during nice weather. In a couple of minutes, Lenny could convert the patio to an indoor space if it began to rain.
On our own house, we added what was simply a vast room with a very high ceiling, and a long high platform seven feet tall that could serve Lenny both as a chair or a bed. Marta made a Titan's mattress for him and he had a comfortable home. By September we were spending more time indoors at night because it grew colder, though Lenny seemed not to be bothered by it.
One night in January I noticed for the first time that I no longer even came up to the level of Lenny's crotch. When he stood clothed, I could walk between his legs. Naked, I couldn't even touch the end of his dick with my face. It was a little distressing to feel thus removed from him. But it was exciting, too! I grew ever more turned on by the colossal and perfect boulder of a man that was my partner Lenny.
On this night when I made my observation about his dick, he knelt down and said, "I never want you to stop kissing my dick. I'll kneel for you every day." How ironic that my partner had to kneel so that I could suck him off! Lenny's voice had grown quite low by this time, his vocal cords having grown to more than twice their original size. His deep bass was a powerful turn-on for me. Sometimes he'd just hum or sing just because he knew I loved to hear the marvelous rumbly sound of him. I easily grew hard just listening to him talk.
Even with Lenny kneeling naked before me, I still only came chest-high to him. I certainly couldn't hug him any more, but I could spread my arms across his vast chest and rub the hard hairy wall that he was. Moving my hands down, I traced each huge bump of his strong abdomen. Each ridge was like a football under his flesh. His navel could have swallowed a stack of silver dollars. I loved to kiss that navel and run my tongue around its inside.
On this particular night, after I'd gone to licking the slit of his dick for a while, he spread his legs and lay on his back, a clear invitation for me to fuck him. One of the joys of his changing size is that while it no longer gives him much pleasure for me to fuck him with my dick, he's now large enough I can easily fist him, and indeed stick most of my forearm up him while he masturbates himself. I know exactly where to find his prostate and can prod it and rub it with great precision while he pumps himself. This night I decided to try something new.
He lay on his back and as I fingered his asshole, he began to massage his gigantic rod (now as heavy as a nightstick). Instead of inserting my hand, however, I lay on my own back and inserted my right foot. He realized immediately what I was doing and laughed. In his low voice he rumbled, "you fucker, that's your foot!"
"I know. It fits pretty well now, doesn't it?"
"Ooh, yeah, it does," he agreed. "Keep… it… up!"
So I prodded my foot around inside him, gently going further and further in. With my toes I tried to find his prostate, but it was harder than with my fingers, since I wasn't used to feeling around in there with my feet. I spat on my hands and began to pump my own hard-on.
"I'm… going… to cream on you!" he said, sitting up slightly. I looked up and saw that his cannon was aimed down at me as I lay helpless on the ground with my foot and calf in his ass. He shot spasm after huge spasm of the sticky fluid on me and on the floor. I tensed my body and shot my own load and then flung it at him. He laughed. It was a small enough dollop to him. My come was lost in his far vaster outpouring.
I couldn't and didn't lick it up. Together, we cleaned up the room with a towel, and I tossed it in the laundry. Going to sleep that night, he lay on his side and I pressed myself against his warm midsection. I buried my face in his chest hair and slept like a baby.
Part X: Epilogue
I'm adding this five years after I completed the rest of my tale. It's Lenny's thirty-fifth birthday and we're celebrating. I'm 30 now myself. Lenny passed the twenty-foot mark some time ago and none of us noticed because we'd stopped measuring regularly. Tom had the great idea of weighing Lenny by putting him in a boat and seeing where the water level came up to. We did that yesterday morning (it took a very large hull) and figured that he weighs about 8000 pounds, give or take 500. He's quite a giant, all right.
Lenny's going to outgrow the room at the Ayre's house soon, though at our house he probably has a year or two more to go. This summer we're going to raise the ceiling a bit.
One piece of good news: Tom found a partner a couple of years ago who's as good a man as there is. It didn't take me long to realize that we could let him in on the secret of our giant. His name, funny enough, is Martin, and when I told him later about "Martin Long," he got a good laugh and said, "I knew you two looked familiar!" He'd actually seen some of our videos! Martin, a dark-skinned Native American, mans the sporting store now mostly by himself and I'm back at the shop building boats with Lenny and Tom. Now that Martin is in Tom's life, we see Tom less often at the Ayres" house, but when he does come, of course Martin comes too, so now we're a family of six. Every now and then Marta spends an evening with us as well, and I think Lucy really likes the female company.
Marta is coming tonight, in fact, to help celebrate Lenny's thirty-fifth. She's made him several new outfits, I think. Frank bought us an industrial-size washing machine and dryer in which we can wash Lenny's clothes, one piece at a time. I confess that washing a lot being so troublesome, and the wear and tear on his clothes being so great, he usually goes about two weeks at a time wearing the same clothes except for underwear and an undershirt. These Marta has given him lots of, and we can wash one pair of underwear and one undershirt at the same time in the laundry. They're like flannel bedsheets for a king-sized bed.
We also have a pet now, "Butch". (Tom named her.) She's an enormous German shepherd, but of course to Lenny she's like a lap dog. Butch adores Lenny and follows him everywhere. On days when it's a little hazy or drizzly, we go down to the river for a swim. We almost never risk going on bright sunny days for fear of being seen. But that's not likely even then, for no one lives within sight of our part of the valley but us. When we go down to the river, I sit on Lenny's shoulders. I'd never keep up with him otherwise! There's a place in the river where it's not too fast for me (though it is very cold) and yet where it's deep enough that even Lenny can enjoy swimming around. When he stands, there's no place where the water is higher than the biplane tattoo on his upper arm, which has grown with the rest of him, though it is fainter now. But he loves going to the river all the same, and so do Butch and I.
I still run every morning; in fact, I'm now running about ten miles every day and I'm thinking of entering a marathon run. I need a little more training first. I need to try running twenty miles a few times.
Sometimes for a few nostalgic minutes I miss my life as a coach and phys ed teacher. That's what I wanted to be all through college. But life often surprises us with unimaginable things we want more than anything we could have dreamed of. For Tom and Martin, for Lucy and Frank, and especially for Lenny and me, Alaska is heaven. Assuming he keeps on growing and lives to a normal old age, Lenny will probably be about 40 feet tall and weigh 25 tons when he finally leaves this world in a gigantic biplane bound for heaven. Is there anyone but me anywhere who has truly been blessed with 25 tons of love?
Contact webmaster about this storyReport a problem with this story
Public relations by Maximilian Cum Hair Giant Cock HyCock Musc PSD Shr Grow Taller Viol CGrow MGrow Gut Bond When Jamie gets an out-of-the-blue invitation to meet up with a friend he'd fallen out of touch with, he doesn't realize Adam has an ulterior motive—or that it involves an unwilling introduction to growth and magic.
I want what I want by NCGazza Giant Balls Cock Musc PSD Grow Taller Viol CGrow MGrow HMusc Nano Multitrillionaire Benjamin Kind has Professor Grant Jennings create a DNA altering nanobite to give him the body he's always wanted.
Giant problems by aquila Cum Giant HyCock PSD Grow Tf Taller Viol Caught up in a science experiment gone wrong, John finds himself at odds with his former boss and employer, leading to some giant problems.
Late reunion by LAComplex Giant Cock HyCock Musc Grow Taller Viol CGrow MGrow Four pornstars pay a visit to their 250-foot friend and colleague, Collin Simpson, and trigger a world-changing growth spurt.
The Muscles Tech Hotel by TonnyGiant Giant Cock Musc PSD Grow MGrow Deciding to take a vacation, Luke happens across a listing for a hotel where the employees and the guests all seem to be gorgeous muscle giants. He registers immediately, wanting to be among men like that, but secretly yearning even more desperately to be just like them.
Getting more than you bargained for by Tereshky Giant Balls Cock HyCock XArm Musc Grow Stack Taller XPec CGrow MGrow XLimb Most people do their growing before the pose-down, but this bodybuilding competition is not what it seems.
Pride by NBCK99 Hair Cock Musc PSD Grow Taller CGrow MGrow Jake attends his first Pride parade with his boyfriend Ross and is a bit overwhelmed, so they step into a bar—where it turns out the impressively hot and muscular patrons and staff take a shine to the new arrivals.
Payback by muscl4life Giant Cock HyCock Musc Nonc PSD Grow CGrow MGrow MTheft After being betrayed by his bodybuilder boyfriend, Leo stumbles on an acquaintance with a wizard who claims to want to help him get even.
= Stories with 4.0+ stars (and 5+ votes)
= Top 200 stories by page view
= Top 50 stories by page view (last 30 days)
= Novella length (more than 20,000 words)
= Updated in the last 60 days
= Commissioned via Patreon
What did you think of "My friend Lenny" by Reuben?
Current standing: 5.0 stars (2 votes)
Breakdown: [0][0][0][0][2]
Note: Please do not downvote only because you not a fan of the genres in this story. The goal is to help authors get feedback on what works well or doesn't and also to provide guidance for readers looking for stories like this one. Thanks.
Site content © 2021 Brian Ramirez Kyle. Authors retain copyright to any stories posted on Metabods.
Submission Guidelines Disclaimers Privacy Policy Site Map


text:
Return to the Full Article View	You can republish this story for free. Click the "Copy HTML" button below. Questions? Get more details.
What Patients Can Learn With Confidence From One Negative Rapid Test (Hint: Very Little)
By Julie Appleby and Phil Galewitz	 January 13, 2022
Julie Ann Justo, an infectious disease clinical pharmacist for a South Carolina hospital system, hoped Christmas week would finally be the time her family could safely gather for a reunion.
Before the celebration, family members who were eligible were vaccinated and boosted. They quarantined and used masks in the days leading up to the event. And many took solace in negative results from rapid covid-19 tests taken a few days before the 35-person indoor gathering in South Florida to make sure no one was infectious.
But within a week, Justo and at least 13 members of her extended family tested positive for covid, with many feeling typical symptoms of an upper respiratory virus, such as a sore throat and a runny nose.
Like many other Americans, Justo's family learned the hard way that a single negative result from an at-home rapid test, which takes about 15 minutes, is no guarantee that a person is not ill or carrying the virus.
There are just so many variables. Testing may come either too soon, before enough virus is present to detect, or too late, after a person has already spread the virus to others.
And most rapid tests, even according to their instructions, are meant to be used in pairs — generally a day or two apart — for increased accuracy. Despite that, a few brands are sold one to a box and, with the tests sometimes expensive and in short supply, families are often relying on a single screening.
While home antigen testing remains a useful — and underutilized — tool to curb the pandemic, experts say, it is often misused and may provide false confidence.
Some people mistakenly look at the home tests "like a get-out-of-jail-free card," said Dr. William Schaffner, a specialist in infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee. "'I'm negative, so I don't have to worry anymore.'"
That is even more true now that the new more transmissible variant dominates the country.
"Omicron is so transmissible that it is challenging to use any kind of testing strategy in terms of get-togethers and be successful," said Dr. Patrick Mathias, vice chair of clinical operations for the Department of Laboratory Medicine & Pathology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.
Rapid tests are pretty good at correctly detecting infection in people with symptoms, Mathias said, with a 70% to nearly 90% range of accuracy estimated in several studies. Other studies, some that predate current variants or were performed under more controlled settings, have shown higher rates, but, even then, the tests can still miss some infected people. That raises the risk of spread, with the chance rising dramatically as the number of people attending an event grows.
Results of antigen tests are less accurate for people without symptoms.
For the asymptomatic, the rapid tests, "on average, [correctly] detect infection roughly 50% of the time," said Shama Cash-Goldwasser, an adviser for Prevent Epidemics at Resolve to Save Lives, a nonprofit group run by Dr. Tom Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Looking back, Justo said her family took precautions, but she acknowledges missteps that put them at increased risk: Not all family members were tested before getting together because of a shortage of test kits. Some members of her family who could find rapid tests tested just once because of the need to ration tests. And in attendance were several children under age 5 who are not yet eligible for a covid vaccine. They were later among the first to show symptoms.
"We probably were relying too heavily on negative rapid tests in order to gather indoors with others without other layers of protections," she said.
Even if everyone tested properly before the party, health experts said, it wouldn't mean all attendees are "safe" from getting covid. Testing merely reduces the risk of exposure; it doesn't eliminate it.
Other factors in assessing risk at a gathering: Is everyone vaccinated and boosted, which can help reduce the likelihood of infection? Did attendees properly follow all the steps outlined in the test kits' instructions, which can differ by brand? Did anyone test too early after exposure or, conversely, not close enough to the event?
One critical detail "is the timing of the test," said Schaffner at Vanderbilt. Another, he said, is how well the tests can spot true positives and true negatives.
Test too early, such as within a day or two of exposure, and results won't be accurate. Similarly, testing several days before an event won't tell you much about who might be infectious on the day of the gathering.
Schaffner and others recommend that self-testing start three days after a known exposure or, if one feels ill, a few days after the onset of symptoms. Because the timeline for detecting an infection is uncertain, it's always a good idea to use both tests in the kit, as instructed — the second one 24 to 36 hours after the first. For an event, make sure one of the tests is performed on the day of the gathering.
Antigen tests work by looking for proteins from the surface of the virus, which must be present in adequate amounts for a test to spot. (Lab-based PCR tests, or polymerase chain reaction tests, are more accurate because they can detect smaller amounts of the virus, but they take longer to get results, possibly even days, depending on the backlog at the labs.)
Covid markers may linger as remnants long after live virus is gone, so some scientists question the use of tests — whether antigen or PCR — as a metric for when patients can end their isolation, particularly if they are looking to shorten the recommended period. The CDC recommends five days of isolation, which can end if their symptoms are gone or resolving, with no fever.
Some patients will test positive 10 days or more after their first symptoms, although it is unlikely they remain infectious by then.
Still, that means many people are using the rapid tests inappropriately — not only over-relying on them as a safeguard against covid, but also as a gauge for when an infection is over.
Rapid home tests need to be used over multiple days to increase the chance of an accurate result.
"Each individual test does not have much value as serial testing," said Dr. Zishan Siddiqui, chief medical officer at the Baltimore Convention Center Field Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University. And, because the tests are less reliable in those without symptoms, he said, asymptomatic people should not be relying on a single rapid test to gather with friends or family without taking other mitigation measures.
Worse still, a recent study looking at the omicron variant found that rapid tests could not detect the virus in the first two days of infection, even though lab-based PCR tests did find evidence of covid.
The study examined 30 vaccinated adults in December 2021. "Most omicron cases were infectious for several days before being detectable by rapid antigen tests," according to the study, which has not been peer-reviewed.
False negatives are also more likely when the extent of the disease in a certain area, called community spread, is rampant, which is true for most of the United States today.
"If there's a lot of community spread, that increases the likelihood that you have covid" at a gathering, explained Cash-Goldwasser, since one or more attendees who tested negative may have received a false result. Positivity rates are running over 25% now in some U.S. cities, indicating a lot of virus is circulating.
So, right now, "if you get a negative result, it's important to be more suspicious," she said.
Vaccinations, boosters, masking, physical distancing, ventilation and testing separately are all imperfect strategies to prevent infection. But layered together, they can serve as a more effective barrier, Schaffner said.
"The rapid test is useful" — his own family used them before gathering for Thanksgiving and Christmas — "but it's a barrier with holes in it," he added.
The virus moved through those gaps to crash the party and infect the Justo family. While most of the attendees largely had mild symptoms, Justo said she was short of breath, fatigued and experienced headaches, muscle pain and nausea. It took about 10 days before she felt better.
"I certainly spent a lot of time going back to what we could have done differently," Justo said. "Thankfully no one needed to go to the hospital, and I attribute that to the vaccinations — and for that I am grateful."
Julie Appleby, Kaiser Health News and Phil Galewitz, Kaiser Health News January 13, 2022
Subscribe to KHN's free Morning Briefing.
Some elements may be removed from this article due to republishing restrictions. If you have questions about available photos or other content, please contact khnweb@kff.org.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Q: MySQL installer for Windows (MSI) for 5.7.33 insists on installing 8.0 components Our application database schema is compatible with MySQL 5.7.  A new team member accidentally installed MySQL 8.0.22 on Windows 10 using the MSI installer.  The uninstall of version 8.0.22 was successful.  However, the subsequent install of version 5.7.32 insists on re-installing version 8.0.22 components.  How can version 8.0.22 be cleanly uninstalled to enable a correct 5.7.32 install?

A: As it turns out, it looks like MySQL implemented an MSI installer that can lay down bits from multiple releases. In the Setup Type phase, you can choose which release to install. As such, withdrawing this question accordingly.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


We are glad to announce that the Clockwork Watch Shop is OPEN! It's the best place to find all Clockwork Watch graphic novels, comic art and much more. Kindly check it out!!!
We Make Forbidden Planet's Thought Bubble Top 5!
Huge thanks to James Bacon for this great review!
boing boing Reviews Clockwork Watch!!!
Huzzah! Thanks to the guys at boing boing for their generous review of Clockwork Watch. It's humbling to have their support.


text:
var _ = require('lodash');

module.exports = function (type, data, worker) {
    var self = this;
    self.children = [];
    self.id = null;
    self.type = type;
    self.data = data || {};
    self.status = 'created';
    self.startTime = null;
    self.endTime = null;
    self.progress = 0;
    self.logic = null;
    self.worker = worker && worker;

    self.addChild = function (job) {
        self.children.push({type: job.type, id: job.id});
    };

    self.reportProgress = function (step, total, cb) {
        self.progress = Math.floor(step / total * 100);
        self.worker.socket.emit('updateJobField', {
            job: {type: self.type, id: self.id},
            field: 'progress',
            value: self.progress
        }, cb);
    };

    self.setStatus = function (newStatus, cb) {
        self.status = newStatus;
        self.worker.socket.emit('updateJobField', {
            job: {type: self.type, id: self.id},
            field: 'status', value: self.status
        }, cb);
    };

    self.setStartTime = function (startTime, cb) {
        self.startTime = startTime;
        self.worker.socket.emit('updateJobField', {
            job: {type: self.type, id: self.id},
            field: 'startTime', value: self.startTime
        }, cb);
    };

    self.reportError = function (err, cb) {
        self.err = err;
        self.worker.socket.emit('updateJobField', {
            job: {type: self.type, id: self.id},
            field: 'err', value: self.err
        }, cb);
    };

    self.serialize = function () {
        return {
            id: self.id,
            type: self.type,
            data: JSON.stringify(self.data),
            status: self.status,
            startTime: self.startTime || null,
            endTime: self.endTime || null,
            progress: self.progress,
            err: self.err || null
        };
    };

    self.fromData = function (data) {
        self.id = data.id;
        self.type = data.type;
        self.data = data.data;
        self.status = data.status;
        self.progress = data.progress;
        self.startTime = data.startTime || null;
        self.endtime = data.endTime || null;
        self.err = data.err;

        return self;
    };

    self.execute = function (jobLogic, doneMethod) {
        self.setStatus('active');
        self.logic = jobLogic;
        self.setStartTime(Date.now());
        self.logic(self, doneMethod);
    };

    self.waitForChildren = function (cb) {
        var checkInterval = setInterval(function () {
            self.worker.socket.emit('checkChildren', self.children, function (doneJobs) {
                var childrenInProgress = _.differenceBy(self.children, doneJobs, function (value) {
                    return value.type + value.id;
                });

                self.reportProgress(self.children.length - childrenInProgress.length, self.children.length, function () {
                    if (_.isEmpty(childrenInProgress)) {
                        clearInterval(checkInterval);
                        self.getChildrenResults(function (results) {
                            cb && cb(results);
                        });
                    }
                });
            });
        }, self.worker.config.refreshRate);
    };

    self.getChildrenResults = function (cb) {
        self.worker.socket.emit('getChildrenResults', self.children, cb);
    };

    self.expired = function () {
        return Date.now() - self.startTime >= self.worker.config.job.ttl;
    };

    return self;
};

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Steffen Cieszynski (* 25. Dezember 1989 in Schönebeck (Elbe)) ist ein deutscher Handballspieler.

Leben
Im Jahr 2006 wurde der damals in Magdeburg lebende Steffen Cieszynski Schülerweltmeister. 2006 bestritt er für den Dessau-Roßlauer HV sein erstes Handballspiel in der 2. Bundesliga. Der 1,84 Meter große Cieszynski spielte später zunächst für den SV Oebisfelde, dann für die HG 85 Köthen und wechselte 2014 zum in der 3. Liga spielenden SV Anhalt Bernburg. Dort wurde der Rückraumspieler zum Mannschaftskapitän und Rekordtorschützen des Vereins. 2018 wurde der Vertrag bis 2021 verlängert. Trotzdem wechselte Cieszynski aus privaten Gründen 2019 zum Oberligisten HC Aschersleben.

2006 durfte Cieszynski sich in Anerkennung seines sportlichen Erfolgs als Schülerweltmeister in das Goldene Buch der Stadt Magdeburg eintragen.

Cieszynski ist Vater eines Sohns. Beruflich ist er als Geschäftsführer einer Firma für Werbeinstallationen tätig.

Weblinks
Eintrag zu Steffen Ciesznski auf www.zweitewelle.de

Einzelnachweise

Handballspieler (Dessau-Roßlauer HV)
DDR-Bürger
Deutscher
Geboren 1989
Mann

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia