The Spice of Life (The Transformation #1)

by Jake Furie Lapin

  Well, one time he did his usual thing, where he disappeared into his room and shot up his heroin. Only this time when he came out of his room he wasn’t his usual dozy self. He came stumbling out and his eyes were wide open, bulging out of his face. He stared at me, and just like with those other two men, our eyes met and connected in this incredible, heart-wrenching way. Billy’s shirt was off and his heart was racing so hard that you could actually see it pumping, pushing his skin outward, and he was screaming and waving his arms around. After a few seconds he just collapsed and fell face forward on the floor. After he fell down, we saw that his back was this weird grayish blue color, almost like bruises. It actually looked like someone had punched him repeatedly in the back.

  “Did you call 911?” Kelli couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for Jake to see his friend in such trouble.

  Yes, of course, we called 911. They came, but it was too late. He died that day. When they did the autopsy they told us that, basically, he had taken a hot dose of heroin – the heroin was laced with toxic speed – and his heart had exploded. When it exploded, it was with such ferocity that it actually bruised his back. That’s what we had witnessed. It was really unfortunate and tragic. He was a really nice guy who just got caught up in the drug scene. The way he looked at me in those last moments…I mean, that’s stayed with me all these years, for sure. I realized that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and in those moments, I really saw into the souls of other human beings.

  Kelli was amazed. “It sounds like you really cared about these people you saw die. What an amazing thing. What about your other friends? Can you describe the people you grew up with in the town?”

  Well, the town was mostly Scottish, Irish and Italian. There was definitely a huge Scottish and Irish presence in particular. For example, I remember fish and chips being a very popular meal and the big thing in town. I was definitely the oddball with my dark skin and exotic background. It was weird, I grew up on the “bad” side of town, or the poor side of the tracks; a very poor blue collar neighborhood. Later in life we moved to the white-collar part of town. It was rough growing up, because everybody was Irish/Italian and blond, or strawberry blond, with fair skin, and freckles, here I was, the dark-skinned kid…the outsider. When I was younger we didn’t know any difference, and just wanted to have fun playing dodgeball and horsing around. I had a lot of good friends and good times.

  “It sounds like your environment had a big impact on you,” Kelli mused. “I’d really like to hear more about that.” She smiled at him, and he smiled back.

  “Yes, it did. The defining moments, though, were when I was invited over to people’s homes. As you would expect, it was common for kids to get invited for lunch, snacks or whatever. However, my friends quickly learned not to invite me over in the same way. When they did, their parents would look at me strangely; they knew I wasn’t like them, and they would covertly encourage the kids to shun me or push me away. Socializing with me was seen as socializing with one of the ‘bad guys’. That really hurt, mainly because it really stopped me from having relationships with girls. As a result, I didn’t really have any kind of relationship or companionship with the opposite sex until I got to college, after I had moved out of the town.

  “So, you had no female intimacy at this point?”

  Well, I think I mentioned last time that in high school there was an incident with a friend of mine, Elaine. She was a few years older – I was a freshman at the time – and she took my virginity, somewhat by force as part of a role-playing game. I went along with it, but it was an odd situation.

  Kelli blinked, “Yes. I remember. It sounded forceful. Do you want to tell me more about that?”

  Jake smiled, almost amused, but with an unmistakable note of regret. “I’m sure you would love to hear all about it,” he teased, but then his face got serious. “In all honesty, no, I don’t. There is too much emotion connected with that, too much unresolved history. Elaine still haunts me. Around the time I entered high school, I had become very interested in role-playing games. Of these, Dungeons and Dragons was my favorite. I used to play it regularly with some of my closest friends.

  My character was a Demi-Elf, named Mikkal. Demi-Elves are half-human and half-Elf; in other words, they have a dual nature. This fit my own personality perfectly. As I got older I realized that there were two sides battling against each other inside me. The first side of me was like the elves: compassionate, highly intelligent, quick-witted, physically nimble, and reserved. The other side was very human; prone to taking risks, being reckless, and disregarding danger.

  One late, rainy Thursday afternoon, my friends and I arranged to meet at a D&D gathering. However, three of my male friends had been put into detention at school for engaging in horseplay during gym class. As a result, the only two people who attended our gathering were Elaine O’Conner, whose house we were meeting in, and myself.

  Elaine was a junior, but she had been held back a year in elementary school, so she should have been a senior. Since I had started school a year early, there was a three-year age gap between us. Our mothers' had met through school activities and were friends. Elaine’s mom was divorced, and unlike other parents in town, had no problem with my racial background so I had spent a lot of time at their house while growing up. All through elementary and middle school Elaine was like an older sister to me. A sister I never had.

  Recently though, I had started to become aware of how beautiful she was. Somehow I had never noticed before. Elaine and I decided to engage in a little bit of one-on-one role play while we waited for the others to get out of detention. We always had our gatherings in her bedroom, and this day was no different. The room was already dim because of the rainy weather but Elaine drew the curtains, dimmed her overhead light to a faint glow, and lit candles throughout the room–¬a D&D ritual.

  Elaine took on the role of Dungeon Master for the session. Her character was a full-blood Elf, named DM Zorra. As Dungeon Master, she told my character, Mikkal, that he encounters a female Elf demi-god who puts him under a spell of binding. With that, DM Zorra lit a few extra candles and then she bound my wrists with a silken rope, as a way of enhancing the role play. Then she instructed Mikkal to lie down on the bed. The female Elf demi-god wished to punish Mikkal for being too close to humans, but as a half-human himself, Mikkal appealed the punishment.

  “Absolutely not,” replied the female demi-god. “You have transgressed and you WILL receive your punishment.”

  With that, she declared that Mikkal’s punishment would be five lashes on the chest.

  “Remove your shirt, Mikkal,” she said. I, as Mikkal, obeyed with a sensation of fear and excitement mingled together.

  Elaine, or DM Zorra, then bound my hands to the bedposts more securely. She opened a drawer and withdrew a long, satin strip of cloth, which she used to wrap around my eyes.

  I felt my breath quicken.

  “Now hold still,” said Elaine.

  After Elaine prompted me to remain still I heard the sound of a drawer open and then felt an incredible sensation on my chest and nipples. Elaine had withdrawn a long leather crop and was teasing me with the tassels. She drew them back and forth across my erect nipples and the feeling was unlike anything I had ever experienced before.

  I was half expecting her suddenly to snap the whip and make me sting, but she didn't. Instead, I suddenly felt her breath against my ear.

  Speaking as DM Zorra, Elaine whispered, “Mikkal, have you been with a woman yet?”

  Trembling, I responded, “No, DM.”

  I knew that Elaine had a reputation for promiscuity even though until this point she had just been a friend to me–almost like a sister. I had heard the rumors though, and she even told me about a few of her sexual encounters. I knew that she had a certain “type” that she liked, and I wasn't it. However, she told me later that she was intrigued by my body, as it was so different from those of the boys she usually dated.

  In any case, I wa
s still blindfolded but I felt her softly kissing my face. She started by kissing each cheek softly, then my forehead and chin. The softness and wetness of her mouth really turned me on and I moaned slightly and parted my lips. She teased me for a while and then finally laid her mouth against mine. I had kissed girls before, but Elaine was something totally different. She knew exactly what she was doing as she pulled and teased my lower lip, flicking her tongue inside my mouth expertly.

  Things were already heating up for me, but then Elaine began her descent on my body. She kissed around the line of my collar bone and neck, and then down the curve of my chest, following the crease in the middle of my abs. My nipples were rock hard, and she flicked her tongue over each one several times before continuing south.

  She reached my waistline and ran her tongue into my navel before unzipping my fly. My cock was throbbing hard at this point. I didn't even have time to question what was happening before she pulled both my boxers and pants off completely, leaving my erection completely exposed.

  She took the crop and ran the leather tassels over my groin area, dipping them into the creases of my legs and flicking them across the length of my cock lightly. I moaned again.

  Elaine spoke. Her voice sounded throaty. “Mmmm…Mikkal…you are quite a bit larger and thicker than those Irish boys I've seen before, and circumcised!” With that, she ran her hand over my swollen penis and then spoke the words that changed my life:

  “Today, Mikkal, you will be christened. By me.”

  I then felt a completely new sensation, warm, wet and ecstatic. Elaine was going down on me. She wrapped her mouth around my erection, stroking it with her full lips, running her tongue up and down my shaft and over my balls.

  It’s a miracle that I didn't cum right then and there in her mouth, but somehow I held out. Physically, the sensation was incredible. Emotionally, I was a little bit bewildered and confused; I didn't know quite what was happening or what I should do, but I was willing to let Elaine – or DM Zorra – have her way with me.

  After a few minutes the sensation changed once again. The warmth and wetness around my cock shifted in a completely new way. I felt Elaine’s hands against my chest and her legs wrapped around the outside of mine. I suddenly realized that she was riding me and my cock was inside her pussy.

  Elaine must have felt me trembling because she said in a sensual whisper, “Don’t panic, Mikkal. Just stay focused. Don’t lose control; don’t let go until I tell you.”

  A few minutes later I heard her breathing quicken and felt her whole body tense against mine.

  “NOW, Mikkal!” she shrieked, as I felt her pussy pulse wildly against my cock. I let go just then and came hard. Extremely hard.

  Afterwards, I felt a little bit lost.

  “Elaine…is everything OK? What just happened?”

  She reached down, loosened my blindfold and kissed me lightly on the cheek.

  “Don’t worry about it, Jake,” she said and smiled at me. She was Elaine again, not DM Zorra. Then she helped me get dressed, as I asked what this all meant. Elaine smiled and ignored the question.

  “No, seriously Elaine, what does this all mean?”

  “Well, it means that until I graduate and go to college, we’re partners. That’s all. Is that OK with you?”

  I nodded mutely and headed home shortly afterward.

  Sadly, my relationship with Elaine was fated to be short. A few weeks after our first encounter, Elaine discovered that she was pregnant, and she believed that the baby was mine. Her mother was furious and even angrier when she heard that I was the father. She forbade us from seeing each other. Word got around town, though, and Elaine and her mother soon moved away.

  The incident with Elaine affected me deeply. She had taken my virginity, and done so in a dominant way that left me little choice. I was unsure how to handle myself around women, which led to a very limited dating life. I didn't even have a date to my Junior Prom. Strangely enough, when I look back at my yearbook I see notes from girls who clearly had crushes on me, but I was too unsure of myself to recognize it at the time.

  Kelli asked, “Did you ever find out what happened to Elaine?”

  Jake nodded. “Yes. As I mentioned, she moved away with her mother shortly after finding out that she was pregnant. Her mom eventually threw her out of the house. She was dating a loser named “Sharky.” We both used to go to a park that was between our two towns and make out or have casual sex. This went on for a few years in total, funny till I graduated high school, as she never could finish, I thought ironically.

  One thing about Elaine is that she had a shark tattoo on her shoulder. I always assumed that it was for her boyfriend, Sharky. However, she divulged to me one day that the shark tattoo was actually for me! I couldn’t believe it, and asked her to explain. She told me that she had told others in school about the scar on my arm. She told them that I encountered a shark at Wildwood; I wrestled with the shark and prevailed. It was amazing. It’s funny because she spread the rumor around and even though it wasn’t true, a lot of people believed it. So I was pretty happy about that when she told me.

  One thing about Elaine, I had to admit, she was masterful at controlling the sex.

  “In what way?” Kelli curiously asked.

  I always remember, Elaine had a way of pinning me down, taking me inside her mouth, and her losing control. She loved riding me, riding me hard, especially reverse; she would straddle me and grab my legs, and just keep pounding me and pounding me, amazed at how big I was and how long I could last.

  In the end, she didn’t marry Sharky, thankfully. He wasn’t very good to her. We kept in touch for a long time, and last I heard she was happy and doing well as a single mom, raising her child.”

  Kelli was happy to hear it. “Great! Go on,” she said.

  “Growing up in that town, there wasn’t anyone who was like me physically, in the sense of my ethnicity. There certainly weren’t other girls who looked like me. They were all very different. Throughout my whole life I’ve been a product of that environment, in that I’ve found myself attracted to a particular type of woman: Scottish, Irish, and also a fair number of Italian women. That’s what I grew up with and who I saw around me all the time. There have been women of other ethnicities who were attracted to me and approached me at various times, but I generally shunned them or rebuffed them, mainly because I just didn’t know how to react or behave around them. I realize now, as an older man, how stupid that was. These days, I always keep an open mind as far as relationships go and treat everyone equally. But racism was such a part of the town where I grew up that it really did affect me and cause me to be attracted to a certain type of woman, even while they pushed me away, which hurt and scarred me.

  Jake paused slightly and took a sip of water. Kelli jotted down a few notes on the legal pad and then asked, “So, how did you change your mind and open up to other types of relationships?”

  I was fortunate; I graduated fourth in my class and went away to school in Boston. As a freshman, my room assignment wasn’t given to me until just a week before school started. As a result, I was placed in a dorm that was mostly occupied by juniors and seniors, even though my best friend was also a freshman and was placed in the freshman dorm. Initially, I led a typical freshman life. My freshman friend would take me to freshmen parties, the typical keg parties with a huge keg of beer in the basement, people getting hammered, and a guy/girl ratio of about 20:1. In other words, a freshman guy was extremely lucky if he was able to hook up at the end of the night. I guess that the girls were lucky in that they had their choice of guys. I was still pretty shy and reserved and I certainly never got lucky at any of those parties.”

  “Really?” she asked. “No hook ups?” She found it hard to believe that someone as sexy as Jake wouldn’t have fooled around with a lot of women.

  “No. Not even once.

  However, I was fortunate in that I was living in the dorm with mostly juniors and seniors, and they would take me to m
ore ‘adult’ parties. Those parties were a lot more structured; there would be no more than 20 or 30 people, with an equal ratio of men to women. The idea was that everybody would be able to hook up by the end of the evening. My shyness still held me back though. I was intimidated by the older girls. Because I was a freshman, there was a maturity gap with these girls who were two or three years my senior, and I didn’t know how to approach or speak to girls in general, much less those who were older and more sophisticated.

  However, as fate would have it, it was at one of these parties full of older people that I had my first real experience interacting sexually with a woman. I was at a party hosted by a junior and I was sitting on a loveseat against one wall of the room. The hosts had created a drink called the “Hell in a Melon.” It was one of those creative, sugar-filled inventions that only college-aged kids could come up with. Basically, the hosts took a watermelon, cut it in half, hollowed it out, and then filled it with a mixture of blueberry Kool-Aid and grain alcohol. I was a complete light-weight at that time and wasn’t really aware of the potency of the grain alcohol. The drink was actually pretty good, like a tasty and potent fruit punch. I drank two or three glasses of it and just sat there on the loveseat and got really, really, really buzzed.