low

You swat at a mosquito. Damned things are all over the place this year. You hear roaring laughter from the “lion pride” at the cooker. Every year your cousins invite you to this get-together. It felt like the whole city was in attendance. Usually that wouldn’t include you, but you’re always too polite to decline, so you sit somewhere out of the way. This year it was on the screened in porch by the house. The weather was too hot to leave the gentle breeze from the stylish wooden overhead fan. Even as the sun set, the heat hardly abated, and so you relaxed in the patio chair, sipping on whatever non-alcoholic beverage you could find in the coolers. Your phone battery was wearing out from the constant use today, your little escape from the social. The plaything of the moment: virtual ping-pong.

One of the screen doors clacks shut, undoubtedly someone passing through to go to the restroom. You don’t bother to look up from your little glowing friend. A disembodied hand swings a virtual ping-pong paddle, sending the glowing ball back at the artificial opponent. The computer player reacts quickly, returning your volley. You slide your finger across, trying to reach the impact point of the ball. You flinch as you anticipate the reflection… but you’re off by just an inch. “Waiting for someone?” a quiet voice asks, startling you. You look up. The light brown muzzle of a wolfette looks back. You shake your head in the negative. “Well what are you doing here by yourself? The party’s out there,” she gestures to the lawn. You shrug. “Just a bit of a lone wolf, then?” she asks, smirking at her own pun. “Guess so,” you reply, somewhat annoyed that she wasn’t picking up on your intent to be left alone. Her dark hair was a bit frizzled from the humidity. “So how’d you get roped in to this if you don’t wanna come out and join the rest of us?” “James is my cousin,” you reply. “It’s kind of a family thing.” “Ah, I see,” she echoes, staring the game on your phone. “You any good at the real thing?” Your eyes break away from the screen, looking back up to her inquisitively. “Ping pong? Not really, but I’d rather play a real game than this shitty phone one.” “So how about one? It’s been a few years, but James had one in the garage last time I was here. Think he’d be okay with us using it?” “I could ask,” you offer. “Or we could just go…” She pushes your finger against the lock button and tugs your hand. Reluctantly, you leave your seat on the porch, following her through the neatly decorated house in to the attached garage. As she predicted, there in the corner sits a folded up ping pong table. The two of you wrestle it out, conveniently dislodging a box of paddles and balls in the process. You set up the net while she bounces a ball on her paddle. She serves. “I'm Nicole, by the way. You're family of James'?” “Yeah, second cousins or something. Honestly, I'm not really sure, he's just kinda an uncle to me.” “Ah, got it. So what do you do?” “Right now? Nothing.” You return. “Is that so?” She volleys. “Mhm. And you?” You reflect. “I’m an athlete.” You miss the return. She tosses you a ball from the box. “What sport?” you ask as you line up for your serve. “H-Wrestling,” she replies. “Hah hah,” you sarcastically laugh. “Come on, I was honest with you, so I think I deserve an honest answer back.” She’s a bit less that your height, making her no taller than 5’5”. There’s no way in hell she’s a Heavyweight+ wrestler. Those guys (and the few girls) were all easily 8’ and buffed to hell and back, like sumo wrestlers if all their fat turned to rock hard muscle. Looking her over in the decent light, she probably could convince you that she’s pro runner, though, her arms are somewhat toned, so maybe she even say track and field. But either way, wrestling is visibly not her forte. You serve. “I’m serious.” She returns. “And I’m Santa Claus,” you rebuff. You don’t follow H-Wrestling terribly closely, but you do know the local lineup, and even if she did have an extra 800lbs of muscle on her, she isn’t on it. Though her fur color is somewhat reminiscent of one with the stage name “Howl,” but her tail looks more like another that went by “Hunting Dog.” She narrowly misses the return. “You leave your muscle at home, then?” you ask, half mocking, half taunting. She smirks. “Funny you should ask.” She rummages through the backpack she’s been carrying around, pulling out a blender bottle of glowing blue liquid. “How many poor, defenseless glow sticks did you need to crack open for that little trick?” Not dissuaded by your taunts, she pops open the lid and lets a drop run on to her tongue. She winces slightly. “Hey look, you don’t need to drink glow stick juice, I’m just giving you a hard ti…” you trail off. You can see the veins on the side of her neck, and there’s a light blue tint to them. Glowing blue. She rolls her shoulders back, pushing her chest out a bit. Her shirt is taught over her rack… were her tits that big a minute ago? No, it’s not just her breasts. You can see the muscles behind them, pushing outward a bit. Her arms don’t look like they fit on a runner’s body now, they look like a female fitness model’s. How the hell did she even get that shirt on with shoulders like that? “Should... I call an ambulance for you?” you ask, genuinely concerned for this wolf girl, who continues to stretch, sometimes even flexing. You can’t believe what you’re seeing. You’re positive that you would have noticed this gal’s baseball-sized biceps before now. Maybe not on the porch, with only the tiki torches for light, but absolutely by the time you got inside in to the pale florescent lights of the garage. You hear a pop. She reaches behind her and pulls her sports bra off from under her shirt. The back straps have snapped, the elastic fraying in to tiny fibers. She shakes her head, letting her humidity-frizzled hair tumble around. Your jaw hangs open at the spectacle you just witnessed. “Think I’d be big enough after a full glass of that stuff?” You nod wordlessly. “Now, let’s make this interesting. I’ve gone and ruined a perfectly good sports bra to show you I’m serious, and I want payback. But I like to play a fair game, so now that you know what’s up, here’s how we’re gonna roll: you miss, you take a sip of the blue stuff. I miss, I take a sip. We keep going until one of us can’t play. No cop-outs.” She flexes an arm, showing off the crevice between the peaks of her bicep. “Play your best, or my little drink and I will come over there and make you wish you had.” You nod again. She serves. You ping. She pongs. Her volleys are forceful, intent, and powerful. In fact, too powerful. A decisive slam from her dented the ball, sending it in to the net. You shrug. She huffs. Popping the lid open again, she takes a minuscule sip, but a sip nonetheless. She shivers like chills are running across her whole body. This time she doesn’t bother flexing to show off. Her shoulders have started to push the fabric of her shirt thin around their bulging heads. Her biceps and triceps thicken, straining the shirt’s sleeves. The collar of the shirt wanders upwards as her traps thicken along her neck. Her grip tightens around the paddle as the cords of her forearms ripple and throb. Under her arms, you can see the back of her shirt pushing out to her sides. Her serve again. Still intent, but trying to remain in control. You return. She repels the ball, even managing to add a slight spin. You return. She launches the ball up towards the ceiling. You scramble, and barely send the ball back to her side, catching her off guard. She bites her lip as she pops the bottle back open. Her sleeves don’t survive the assault, popping open on both sides as her triceps tense, and biceps beef up. Her pecs and breasts both are clear through the paper-thin shirt. Her traps again inch up her neck, tugging the collar of her shirt upward. She re-positions herself. Her lats start to intrude upon her arms’ space. She growls as the growth rolls down her back. She sighs as she feels the rush conclude. She tenses her chest and thrusts it outward, finally pushing the shirt’s collar over the edge, popping a seam beneath her neck. She reaches up to wipe a stray drip of elixir off her lips, but her biceps impede her reach. Not satisfied, she tries again with her other arm, with equal success. She tries to lap it up with her tongue, only a moment later realizing how silly she looks. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear she was blushing a bit. Regardless, she eventually recovers the droplet. She smirks as she feels the tingling return slightly. A short jolt of growth pushes her chest out every so slightly further, snapping another thread of the vulnerable seam. Despite the spectacle in front of you, her reach does seem to be decreasing, meaning your advantage is growing about as quickly as she is. A new volley. She serves. She underestimated her strength, whacking the ball against the wall behind you. Before she can react, you toss her another ball, as the previous one is surely totaled. “Do I have to…” she asks, looking at the bottle. “Nah, you get a redo.” you offer. She smiles. Not a smirk this time, a genuine smile. You see it in her eyes. She serves again, minding her new strength. While she lands it on the table this time, you can tell there’s much more power behind this serve compared to when the game began. The ball lands back on her side. She tries to bring her arm across, but her protruding chest (and prodigious breasts) prevent her from reaching it in time. You’re about to declare victory: she’s too big to play, but she grabs the bottle. “I think it’s over.” She shakes her head, eyes closed, the bottle already on her lips. She takes much more than a simple sip; this was comparable to a full glass of the stuff, leaving only about half the bottle. She gasps after her drink, closing the lid, and placing it on the table. Her chest heaves with deep, heavy breaths. She lifts her arms from her side, the sudden activity instantly causing growth on her shoulders. She flings her arms inwards, clutching whatever handful of fabric she could grasp. Her biceps shoot out, approaching the size of bowling balls. With a savage rip, she disrobes. Muscles flex and roll across her shuddering physique, pushing themselves outwards. She strains a bit, trying to reach her hips, but deciding on an easier route: she flexes her thighs explosively. Bits of fabric spray across the room as her quads burgeon outwards, thicker than your torso… hell, probably thicker than your car’s tires. Her upper body doesn’t hold back. Muscles you never knew existed fight for prominence, and then for space on her torso. After a few minutes of surging, crashing growth, she stands as wide as the table, a head and a half taller than you, entirely naked, and completely unable to swing a paddle. “Serve.” she says with a playful, but foreboding voice, which now seems totally unbefitting of a titan that could topple mountains. You don’t make her ask twice. You grab a ball and bounce it toward her. Her hands don’t budge. In fact, she doesn’t move her arms at all. The ball bounces up, hitting her chest and— tho-whissssssssssssssssssssstCRK Something flies past your head, and something shatters behind you. She cheers and laughs giddily. The source of the crash: an old cathode-ray television, and the remains of its thick glass screen, now scattered on the floor around it. Inside the vintage TV tube, a pulverized ping pong ball. “Rack-returned!” she nearly cries, leaning on the table to support herself during her hysterical fit. She finally returns to some semblance of composure and straightens her posture. Her pec, the one the ball was about to impact, is probably one and a half times larger than the other. She puts her hands near her hips and bounces her pecs, each flex emitting a meaty thud, and pumping her chest meat larger and thicker. After a couple extra bounces for effect, her pecs jut out feet from her torso, now absolutely thicker than your car’s tires. You can see the fringes of her tail wagging happily on the rare occasion when it peeks around her mountainous back. She tips the table to its side and trods over to you. She hefts you up with one arm, putting you down on her other. It was the only way she could see you without leaning down. “That was fun,” she says, the air of genuineness returning to her. “You still lost, though.” She flexes her bicep, bouncing you. “Shush.” She pulls her arm in a bit closer, bringing you much closer to her face. She seems content with the situation. She looks down, shyly. She’d be looking straight at the floor if her pecs weren’t in the way. “Maybe we should play another round?” she asks. This time you were sure she was blushing, fur or no fur. You decide to risk it: you lean across her pec, and give her a kiss on the forehead. She leans up and kisses you back. You break away after a pleasant, tender kiss. “AH!” you exclaim as the thought hits you. “Bulldog!” “Guilty as charged,” she smiles. “Guess you really do know your H-Wrestlers.” “I try. Maybe we should find a more open space to play... if you lose any more, this garage isn’t gonna be able to hold ya.” You both chuckle. “It’s not so bad being this big. Lotsa’ fun stuff to do when you can pick up a car in each hand.” “Well I think it suits you. It's a very Nicole look.” “Mmm, you should try it some time~” she coos. You notice a fruity, electric taste in your mouth... “By the way, you can call me Nickie.” ...and a tightness in your sleeves.

“So we played your game, now let's play mine.” “And what game would that be?” She lets you down and gestures to the half-full bottle of mystery liquid. “Wrestling. Winner cooks the loser breakfast.” “Don't you mean loser cooks the winner breakfast?” “Not a chance. The loser's gonna be wayyyyy too sore for that.” You pick up the bottle. “You can either chug it all at once, or take it slow and do it a couple sips at a time. Downing it all is a rush you'll never feel from anything else, but slow and steady draws it out so much longer.” She flexes her bicep, sending it dangerously close to the ceiling. “That is... unless you think you can take me without help.”

She winks.