Chapter 1 - One Banana

I'd circled the produce section of the Frostwell Walmart several times looking for additional items on my list. My eyes flicked back to the immense pile of banana bunches on the center display. For several minutes, a skittish-looking blond had been immersed in digging for the best bunch.

Whenever I got close, she would swing over to the bags of tangerines and mindlessly squeeze them. I could've just picked up the bunch for my grandparents and been on my way, but the blond intrigued me and I couldn't stop watching.

Eventually, she took notice of me and I raised my hand with a stiff, subdued smile before asking, "Need some help?"

She jerked, swung, and jiggled to the nearest display with the suddenness of an electric shock.

"No. Not. I'm fine. Just fine!" She batted her shoulder-length blond hair away like it was a nest of golden spider webs dropped on her head. Bending over the basket of my cart, my mirth crept up playfully as I peered between the mound of bananas and her fumbling nervousness.

She wore the kind of things you'd expect someone to wear if they just rolled out of bed and realized they needed to get groceries in the middle of the night, only it was the nice part of the afternoon. Her hair settled into a fair cape while a field of random, pale lint balls puffed across her worn top. It otherwise displayed a trio of golden triangles, stacked with an inverted one missing in the middle. Her sleeves barely stretched past her shoulder, though she tried furtively to tug them down. A ragged set of drawstring pants clung to her hips.

To my eye, she was gorgeous, shapely, and alluring, despite the best efforts of her old and sloppy clothing to disguise this fact. It was hard to keep my gaze from drifting to the contours of her pilling-covered top, those golden triangles warped by her bust.

I did feel quietly uncouth about gawking at her so, but the combination of slumming it with her distinct beauty and a certain charm to her attire and flightiness felt like human gravity. The way she swung her cart around, and nearly clipped mine, was enough of a signal to hang back though.

Swallowing, she pressed forth her small voice to express, "I'm just...looking for a certain one. Certain type. Please..." My offer to help was met with a quick, unmistakable shake of her head. As interesting as I found her, I still had several items on my list. So, I gave a little bow and slowly wandered towards the bakery. But not before sneaking a quick glance indulgence of her pert behind through the dipping contours of her drawstring pants as she bent over the bananas to inspect them closely.

In my head, I could only imagine that perhaps she was some sort of photographer and wanted just the right fruit for a display. But, if that were the case, then I suspected that plenty of prop options would be easier than digging through Walmart.

Not my business, but I still snuck the occasional glance her way till, as I was heading into the meat department, she snapped off a single banana from a bunch and stuck just that in her otherwise empty cart. Returning to produce, I wandered over to the display and inspected the bunch she'd separated.

Holding it up to the overhead lamps, it took a moment for me to catch that a bit of the stem she had left behind actually glowed. Not brightly, but with a weird iridescence like soap bubbles or certain kinds of wax. The glimmering was an unmistakable shade of purple.

None of the other bananas in the bunch had this property. Rubbing a finger along my scruffy cheek, I weighed whether perhaps this was some contest. The brand stickers gave no hint and none of the displays suggested a competition. Casually inspecting the bunches, I dug under a few and eventually came up with a bunch like she'd discovered. One near the front was bathed in that faint purple which you could really only glimpse under a bright light.

Shrugging, I added the bunch to my groceries and went on my way. Though I casually tried to track down the girl for some possible answer, it appeared she had went right for the check-out as soon as she'd found that single banana.

Once my cart was full and the main list finished, I crept through the candy aisle. Since Halloween was upon us, the nicest and most cost-effective options had been picked through. Off-brand pops and lumpy brown afterthoughts were plentiful. Sifting through what was left, I selected what would be easiest for my grandparents to dispense with their stiffening fingers.

Filling up the bed of my truck with the groceries, I took the main road under the highway to North Quincy. My grandparent's place was a narrow, older house with broad, peering windows up to the second floor. The wide swath hinted at a glassy, sunken mouth along the front. I'd have to help them string some lights later for the benefit of the trick or treaters. Make it just inviting enough while keeping a shawl of spookiness for the season.

Entering the door along the side driveway, I dropped bag after bag along the counter as my grandmother entered with a warm smile.

"Thank you so much, sweetie. We really appreciate it. All of us. Oh, you were able to find that? Good good. Not too much traffic?" After a hug, she carefully went right to work unpacking. I handled the glass items she wasn't confident with and soon had everything squared away.

My grandmother adjusted her glasses and secured a band to contain her once-fiery waves of hair. It looked like the wind-twisted curls of a campfire while being drenched to plumes of steam.

Once everything was put away, I asked what she needed before evening. Along with the lights, some trash needed to be bundled up and put outside, the shower scrubbed, and a light replaced in the attic.

She explained, "Lacy went for a walk, but she started on the shower. If you could finish that for her, we'd be ever so grateful." Easily done, I assured her. Lacy lived with the two of them in her own room on the second floor, near the attic. Usually, she could take care of most things, but she felt nervous about driving grandpa's Caddy or my towering truck. One less thing and I was free anyway.

Before leaving, I inspected the bunch of bananas and pulled off the unusual one. In the hallway, I checked it again. Still oddly purple when you looked at it closely.

I considered giving it a wash in a nearby sink but, considering I was going to peel off the skin, I figured it wouldn't matter. It separated easily with a pull, and I tried a bite. The first thing I noticed was that it seemed unexpectedly warm. Sure, there had been some hot chicken next to the produce sack, but it was just a short trek from the Walmart to here.

However, the flavor wasn't muddled or hurt. In fact, it tasted sharper, creamier than I was expecting. Not like the cartoony, classic notes of banana candy but like a banana custard or pudding inside of a freshly-baked pie. With the wonderful cooking my grandmother did, that was a vivid and comforting feeling.

It didn't take long before I'd gobbled up the rest of the banana, leaving only a peel, which I licked the inside of to catch the remaining bits. When I was done, I took a deep breath. The air still carried a trace aroma. Shaking my head, I tossed the peel in the bin at the back of the house, near the dining room, and focused on the tasks at hand.

Upstairs, I spied the cleaners and my cousin's half-finished work. A pair of peach scrubbing gloves lay on the towel rack. As I'd mounted the dense, carpeted stairs, I noticed a swirling eddy of warmth tugging from within my stomach. The kind of sensation from when you notice the traces of hot cocoa still inside you. I felt a little flush around my ears and had to pause on the landing.

It didn't feel bad, like I'd consumed something spoiled. But it was so weird. Looking away from the bathroom, I peeked in Lacy's room. We shared a lot in common. My old telescope, repaired and improved by her, rested by the window shades, a leg wrapped around the cloth like a mechanical peeping Tom waiting for its moment.

Books, some I'd already finished, with dog ears I'd put there, lined the wall next to the dressers. Things branched off when it came to clothes but an old, button-up coat of mine sprawled across the back of her desk chair, the collar stiffly inspecting her resting computer.

Taking a break on her bed while the heat in my belly became distressingly similar to the early stages of a muscle cramp, pressing at my abdomen like a wrap, I picked up an edge of her blanket to cradle myself with.

The blanket did little to smother the sensation. I took a deep breath and waited for the anticipated worst to pass. It rose up like a wave about to strike but...instead it slipped past me with ease, leaving behind a wobble of warmth like wiggling water in the tub after you get out. Soon, my body settled into normalcy, except for my groin.

With my clenched, wrapped position on the bed, I expected that stretching would help everything relax, but my manly parts had retreated like a nervous turtle, through the strange feeling of an encroaching sleeve. Tugging and adjusting temporarily freed it before it snuck away again.

I'd heard of the cold making stuff shrink but some sort of spicy banana was another matter entirely. I could do research on Lacy's computer for GMO warnings, but I also really needed to pee. Not trusting myself to stand like this, I settled onto the seat with the door closed and tried to get some relief.

Instead, I felt a frustrating sensation of my pee dribbling across my balls. When I extracted myself, my heart started racing when I realized no pee had come from the tip but rather almost seemed to spread from somewhere lower. Fumbling to explain this weirdness, I wiped myself clean even as my legs quivered.

I wasn't a huge man, nor did I feel small enough that such dribbling made sense. Ultimately, I resolved that I had bent myself around and peed backwards. The clammy sensation still felt unnatural. Hallucinogenic bananas? Creeps pumping groceries full of drugs? Considering the way that blond girl acted, it was the best rationalization I could come up with.

I checked my pupils in the mirror and my temperature with a temporal thermometer. My eyes seemed fine and I was barely over 97 F.

I considered using the toilet, but my stomach seemed to have settled down. A nap might've been an option but that was Lacy's bed. Just plopping down on it while leaving the work half-done didn't feel right. And the spare couch in the attic was desperately dusty with old fluff sprouting from every corner. Creeping downstairs didn't feel that great either, but I'd have to visit both for the bulb replacement and trash, along with the Halloween lighting.

Fixing my eyes on the peach gloves, only one option seemed reasonable. The gloves were long, longer than most chemical safe gloves I'd seen, more like the length of ladies ballroom dancing gloves in an old movie my grandparents were watching the last time I visited.

At the same time, since they were a women's standard small, I expected them to be a throbbing pain to slip on. To my pleasant surprise, my hands slipped through them without trouble or the pressure that I might lose feeling and blood flow to my fingers. Instead, they were roomy enough I had to hike them all the way up.

The inside was wet, likely with water, but I knew just a few minutes with them on could leave anyone, even my cousin, drenched in sweat. I considered rinsing them out, but I already had them on. Afterward, I would be sure to sterilize them though. With all the sprays nearby and the rough brush puffing cleanser, it was time to begin.

Lacy had scraped the old caulk away and sealed every corner with just the right amount. It looked like a forbidden pastry. The mold and water stains came out easily, along with a bundle of brilliant-red hairballs flanking the underside of the drain.

Crouching felt momentarily strange, like I'd stretched and spread a part of myself so far that it had split, like a sore and sensitive dry lip. It didn't feel bad though, but no amount of crouching down and shifting allowed things to slip out.

Rotating my wrists in the gloves during a pause, they felt even looser. I knew that wearing all sorts of gloves for hours on end during work left my skin feeling like a newborn's. Perhaps that was why Lacy liked to get her hands into repairs around the house with these things. She'd always had lovely hands, even in the sharpest cold of winter. Just thinking about that inevitable cold made my normally-relaxed nipples pop out against my top. Straightening it did little to help.

Running the hot water to rinse away the remnants of my work left the room steamy and moist, with my hair feeling crinkly, while matted against the back of my neck. One accidental turn of the faucet left me splashed across my shirt and over my pants legs.

Darn. Aside from several winter coats down in my truck, all my changes of clothes were back at my place. And that was only the prelude. Bending over to get the brush disturbed the solemn ease of my gut, after that amazing but confusing banana, into a gurgling den of chaos.

I barely got my pants off before I had to hug the seat. Wave after wave of what had been breakfast, lunch, and then some, freely abandoned my body. Since the plumbing in this old house was known to be fickle, I made sure to flush several times before I even thought about getting up.

Gloves still draped across my sweat swimming fingers, I had no time to marvel at how light I felt on the seat. It was relief but with the impression of having jogged a marathon to get there. Though I attempted to clean up my backside, the shape curved when it should be slightly sloping.

I had to be out of it with an aggressive stomach bug, despite my lack of fever. After one last attempt, I grunted a wheezy note of frustration, stripped, and hopped in the shower. Since I finished the job, I might as well enjoy it half as much as Lacy probably would.

Despite the age of the pipes and the noises as the water rushed through them, the soft caress of the spray against my tired flesh brought relief, even with the way it fell over me. The rough, sweaty tufts on my legs felt like they weren't even there. I'd been sweating bad, but that couldn't be enough to gloss them over like this.

More than that, the tracing water made me feel so soft and doughy all over. My hips jutted, but my stomach had been through the wringer. The most alarming sensation of all was how bringing my soft thighs together did nothing to pop my balls or anything else loose. Instead, it just felt like my natural position.

A mass pressed over my shoulders. In some ways, it felt like a thin towel dragged taut across my flesh. In others, the twisting, loopy texture seemed more like an argyle sweater not finished in the laundry. Before the mounting, impossible evidence could lead my mind to even more wild speculations, I shut the water off with a turn and a heavy 'thunk' sounding through the wall.

Blearily blinking my way to the nearest towel rack, where I'd hung the peach gloves, I rinsed them off thoroughly and laid them to drip into the sink. Shivering, I peered into the hallway. My shoulder ached strangely with an ever-present tug reaching from my collarbone to my pits. I was so out of it.

I barely had enough thought and awareness to carefully cross to Lacy's bedroom and reach for that gifted coat of mine on her chair. I could get it dry cleaned for her later, so that whatever foul demons seeped from my nether regions could be banished forever. Using a fresh towel, I wrapped myself up in as many layers as I could tolerate and flopped under the blanket with a sea-like jiggle that beckoned me to dive straight from tiredness to slumber.

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Everything after that was missing from my mind until I heard grandma calling out faintly but persistently, "Lacy? Are you back? Lacy? Are you okay?"

Groaning with a restrained, unusual voice, I fought through the icy needles of a headache picking at the clarity of my mind and gazed across the room at the door bending open with grandma's slight shape behind it.

"Oh, Lacy. Good. Have you seen John? He was supposed to finish a few things."

Scrunching my eyes so tightly that everything compressed to boxes of gray beside white, I attempted to answer, "I'm here." But the sound my throat produced launched past a mere, ball-crushing falsetto to words struggling their way past a reedy, high pitch. What would grandma think?

"I'm John", I amended, with the most of my squeaky force put behind it. Grandma gave a sudden, playful snort of amusement as she answered, "You always have such interesting dreams, honey. But I'm looking for John. Did he go?"

Tipping myself forward to drape my legs over the edge of Lacy's bed was like sending a small ferry right into a towering wave. I dipped and swung, and things moved with me, and after I thought I'd come to a complete rest. Groaning at all this on top of the stinging needles in my brain, I assured her, "It's John. What do you need?"

Sighing to herself, she remarked, "Well, whichever one of you wants to take care of the trash, the burnt-out attic bulb, and the lights so the kiddies can see the door, we'd really appreciate the help."

Without prompting, she gave the time. Not even close to sunset yet. I must've just dozed off for a few minutes. Things clung to the remnants of being damp without the oppressive hold of being soaked. Excusing my hair and the long, cold drape of pain my head was resting on.

As I squeaked out an assurance to her that I'd take care of it, I fumbled with extracting the drape from my head to let my skull shake off some of the pain.

The tiny tumble of confusion snow that became an avalanche of realization was licking my parched lips and feeling how much reached out from the top and bottom without pouting. It was a big, dry but rather plush loop of flesh that I might've ignored in my awakening delirium, but which was impossible to get past now.

From there, I discovered how sleek and soft my chin felt, devoid of any hint of scruff. Even the often invisible, innate qualities of my nose passed air in a flow and direction I'd never known before. Standing threatened to overturn whatever remaining mental plates and bowls that represented my ability to hold things steady. This was not my body!

Dragging the coat and cloth I'd buried myself in, I managed to stagger to the closet and slide out the full-length mirror screwed into the door on the inner track. A scared, disheveled reflection of Lacy stood before me. While I long had to crouch down to see myself in her room's mirror, it was now perfectly-sized.

Her curly, crinkly red locks, muted by lingering dampness, wriggled in a mess over her ears and past her shoulder. It looked like a bramble-choked flood zone sprinkled with rust. Her silvery eyes jumped and searched for some seam in the illusion, even as I felt every detail revealed by that mirror.

Clinging to the other sliding door, I let everything around me drop. Eyes wide, Lacy's reflection seemed ready to accuse me of being weird and peeping on her. Her skin was so fair and bright, gently spackled by a painter's brush of brown freckles here and there, even near her ghostly-pink nipples.

I flashed out a hand to block my sight when my eyes snapped to the bright tangles around her crotch with the fleeting hint of a long, intimate dimple leading to so much more. No wonder nothing freed itself. Nothing could possibly slip loose.

Catching nervous snapshots of bare hips and feet and fingers, I dug through the closet until I yanked free a brilliant-green robe and buried as much of Lacy's body in it as possible.

How? Had to be the banana. It was the only suspicious thing. But why this? Why her? No idea, but I needed more than a robe if I was ever going to leave this room.