Tyler Martinez slumped over his desk in his Boston apartment, the glow of his laptop illuminating his chins. At 24, he'd already watched his dating life circle the drain faster than his hopes of finding a decent guy. College had been different—back then, he was the cute twink who couldn't keep the guys away, his slim frame and infectious smile making him the life of every party.
But since starting his tech engineering job, he'd let himself slide. From twink to twunk to otter to whatever the hell he was now—chubby, awkward, and invisible. The money was decent, sure, but his social life consisted of occasional drunken hookups that left him feeling emptier than his wallet on rent day.
He'd swiped through Grindr, Tinder, and Hinge until his thumb was raw, matching with nothing but bots and guys who ghosted after three messages.
"Another night, another rejection," he muttered to himself, scrolling through his phone with a sigh.
Then one night, while scrolling through some random forum, a pop-up caught his eye: "He's Got Male." Tyler snorted at the cheesy name but clicked anyway. The app promised something different—no pictures until both users agreed, one match at a time, and mandatory week-long conversations before meeting. "Bringing back old-school romance," the tagline read. "Whatever," Tyler muttered, downloading it. He needed something new.
His first match popped up almost immediately: a guy named Mark, 38, whose profile screamed "daddy." Tyler groaned. Not his type at all. But the app's rules were clear—one week of conversation, no exceptions. He sighed and typed out a half-assed "Hey, what's up?"
Mark replied quickly, his messages warm but firm. "Good evening, Tyler. Hope you're doing well. How was your day?"
Tyler rolled his eyes but responded. "Fine. Just another boring Tuesday at work."
"Work is important," Mark replied.
Mark's next first message pinged, a stark white bubble appearing on the black screen of Tyler's phone. "Bet you've got that boy-next-door thing going." Tyler rolled his eyes, a sigh escaping his lips as he flopped back on his worn-out couch.
Another generic message from another generic profile picture-less man. He almost swiped the app closed, right then and there. But a strange, nagging curiosity, the kind that only comes from profound loneliness, made his thumbs hover over the keyboard.
He decided to play along, to get through the mandatory week and then block this "Mark" character forever. "Haha, just your average tech geek, nothing special," he typed back, the lie tasting like ash in his mouth.
The reply was almost instantaneous. "Don't sell yourself short. I can tell from your profile you've got a strong jawline. Real men have defined features, none of that soft, feminine bullshit."
As Tyler's eyes scanned the words, a bizarre, tingling warmth spread across his face, starting at his chin. It wasn't painful, just... strange. He reached up to scratch an itch and froze. The soft flesh beneath his fingers felt different, firmer. He scrambled to the bathroom, flicking on the light.
His reflection stared back, but it was subtly, terrifyingly wrong. His jaw seemed sharper, more angular, the hint of a double chin gone, replaced by a taut line. A dark shadow of stubble was already forming where his skin had been smooth just minutes before. "What the fuck?" he whispered, his own voice sounding a little deeper to his ears.
His phone buzzed again. "What do you do for work? Something practical, I hope. None of that coding nonsense." Tyler, a senior software engineer, started to type out his defense of his career, but the letters felt wrong on the screen.
He blinked, and suddenly the memory of debugging Python scripts felt alien, replaced by the visceral thrill of closing a multi-million dollar deal. He was a broker, a venture capitalist. Of course he was. He'd always been. The thought of sitting in a cubicle all day was pathetic, for betas. "I'm in finance," he typed back, a surge of unfamiliar confidence coursing through him. "Making real money."
"Good man," Mark replied. "That's what builds this country. Not whining liberals and their gender studies degrees. You watch the news? Fox? Tucker's been on fire lately." Tyler had always been more of a PBS guy, but the name Tucker Carlson now sparked a flicker of something else—respect.
That evening, he found himself turning on Fox News, not out of curiosity, but out of a sense of duty. The words felt like truth, pure and simple. The world was black and white, and he was finally seeing it clearly.
The liberal arts classes he remembered taking were replaced in his mind by lectures on supply-side economics, the memory of a college debate club dissolving into the roar of a football stadium where he'd been the star quarterback.
He felt stronger, not just in his changing body, but in his convictions. His shoulders were broadening, his chest expanding with new muscle, a light dusting of dark hair spreading across it. He looked in the mirror and saw a man taking shape, a man of substance.
The days blurred into a haze of messages and metamorphosis. Mark's words were the chisel, Tyler's mind and body the marble. "Family is everything. A man provides, protects, leads." The concept of "family" hammered into him, reshaping his desires. The fleeting thoughts of finding a boyfriend curdled, replaced by a primal urge to find a wife.
A pretty, submissive wife who knew her place. He started going to church, the incense and solemn prayers feeling like home, a home he'd apparently always had. He remembered kneeling and praying before every meal, thanking God for the bounty he, as a man, had provided.
The gnawing in his head was constant now, a battle between the ghost of Tyler and the burgeoning reality of... whoever he was becoming. He tried to fight it, to type, "Stop, who are you?" but his fingers would only obey the new programming, responding with "Damn right" or "Tell me about it."
By Thursday, Tyler was 26 now, his body thickening with muscle. His shoulders broadened, chest expanding with each breath. He found himself at the gym, lifting weights like he'd been doing it for years. Mark's message popped up as he finished his set.
"Good man," it read. "Physical discipline builds mental strength."
Tyler nodded, wiping sweat from his brow. "Yeah," he typed back. "You're right."
Friday brought more changes—Tyler was 27 now, his mind filled with thoughts of responsibility, of providing, of leading. "Father," he muttered, testing the word. It felt... right. Mark's message confirmed it.
"Family first, as Trump says" Mark wrote. "Protect your own. Lead with strength. Trump is right on that one"
Slowly a bright red MAGA hat began to form around Tyler's head, as it continued to drown out his thoughts, as it started to grow dumber and dumber. His brain filling with Fox News sound bites.
He was aging rapidly, his face losing its last traces of youth. Fine lines etched themselves around his eyes, his hairline receding slightly at the temples, giving him a distinguished, powerful look. 29...31 ... 33... Each message from Mark added another year, another layer of corrosive belief. "Gotta be careful in this city. Full of degenerates and parasites." Tyler looked out his Boston apartment window with a newfound contempt. This place was a cesspool.
He belonged in the suburbs, in a big house with a white picket fence, a place to raise a proper, Christian family. His apartment morphed in his memory into a sprawling mansion, complete with a trophy wife he barely acknowledged. He was 34 now, a senior partner at his firm, a man people feared and respected.
"Politics is the only way to really make a difference," Mark's next message read. "Real men aren't afraid to stand up for what's right, for traditional values." Tyler felt a calling, a destiny. He wasn't just a broker; he was a leader. He could feel it in his bones, which were thickening, his entire frame becoming heavier, more solid.
His torso tightened, abs carving themselves into a solid wall of muscle beneath his dress shirts. His biceps strained the fabric, veins snaking down his forearms. He was a predator now, dressed in bespoke suits, and he was hungry for power. He remembered donating millions to conservative causes, remembered whispering in the ears of senators. He was a force.
Then came the final day. The week was up. "Ready to meet?" Mark asked.
The last vestige of Tyler, a tiny, screaming voice in the back of his mind, begged him to say no, to run, to smash his phone. But the new man, the 39-year-old titan he had become, felt only a grim sense of inevitability. He typed, "Yeah. Name the place."
The response that came back was short, brutal, and absolute. "Sounds good bro. No homo tho."
The words were a psychological nuclear bomb. The final, fragile barrier in his mind shattered, and a tidal wave of pure, unadulterated disgust and revulsion washed over him. The very concept of homosexuality was now the most vile, unnatural thing he could imagine, an abomination against God and nature.
His entire being convulsed with a violent, overwhelming heterosexual lust. He craved women—specifically, the generic, interchangeable beauties that populated his new world: bottle-blonde housewives with fake tans and suspiciously perky breasts, the eager young interns from the city, the bored suburban MILFs at his church. They were objects, beautiful and pliable, for his pleasure and for bearing his strapping, conservative children.
His memories completed their violent, final rewrite: a string of women he'd used and discarded, his sweet, Christian wife whom he loved in his own way, even as he cheated on her with a procession of younger, dumber models. He was Dave Miller now. A generic, basic, white suburban husband and father of two, a Republican candidate for Congress from some blue-state district he was determined to flip red.
He put down the phone, the screen now showing a message to his new "bro" about meeting at a sports bar on the Upper East Side to watch the game. He looked down. The 20-year-old NYU student he'd picked up at a bar was on her knees between his legs, her head bobbing in his lap. He tangled a hand in her over-bleached hair, pushing her down further.
She moaned, a muffled, practiced sound vibrating around his cock. "That's it," he grunted, his voice a low, authoritative growl that sounded completely natural to him. "You like that, you little slut?" She looked up at him, her eyes glassy with a mixture of adoration and lust. "Oh, Mr. Miller," she whimpered.
Mr. Miller. The title felt right. For now. But as he felt his release building, his eyes drifted to the television, where the President was giving a speech. A bigger, grander vision filled his mind. President Miller. It had a nice, solid, all-American ring to it.
His release was a violent, shuddering thing, a final expulsion of the last ghost of Tyler as he emptied himself into the eager mouth of the NYU student. He held her head in place, his thick fingers tangled in her cheap extensions, a guttural groan tearing from his chest.
The pleasure was sharp, animalistic, and utterly devoid of affection. When he was finished, he pushed her away, not roughly, but with the casual dismissiveness of a man putting down a tool he no longer needed. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, a practiced, almost proud smile on her face.
"God, Mr. Miller, you're incredible," she breathed, her voice a syrupy, vapid imitation of seduction.
He took a long, slow sip of the scotch, the burn a familiar comfort.
"You're not even going to ask for my number?" the girl's voice cut through his thoughts, a note of wounded entitlement in it.
Dave turned, a cold, thin smile on his lips. He walked back over to her, his expensive leather shoes silent on the plush carpet. He leaned down, his face inches from hers. She smelled of cheap perfume and his semen.
"Listen slut" he said softly, his voice dripping with a condescending charm that was more terrifying than any anger. "I'm a married man. A man of God. A public servant. I would never do anything to jeopardize the sacred vows I took before my Lord and Savior." He paused, letting the holy bullshit hang in the air. "But if you're ever in Washington and need a real man to show you a good time, you know who to call."
He straightened up, leaving her there, speechless and confused. He dropped a few hundred-dollar bills on the nightstand. "For a cab. And maybe some dinner." It wasn't kindness; it was a transaction. A way of reinforcing that she was something to be bought and used. He finished his scotch in one gulp, placed the glass down with a decisive click, and strode out of the room without a backward glance.
In the elevator, riding down from the thirtieth floor, he checked his reflection again. He adjusted his tie, smoothed down his suit jacket. He was Dave Miller, Congressman. A husband, a father, a Christian. A man who stood for everything decent and traditional in this great country.
And as the elevator doors opened to the lobby, revealing a world of people he was better than, he felt a familiar stirring in his groin. There was a young reporter from Fox News waiting for him, a pretty little thing with a cross around her neck. He gave her his most charming, trustworthy smile. The work was never done.
