He hoped the growth wouldn’t break any of the fibers in his new, slinky sweater dress as his chest ballooned outwards, pulling mass from who knew where to strain against the knit fabric. Each new nerve ending popping into existence announced itself to his brain with an erotic tingle all its own, filling the new flesh with a buzz of sensual energies that reverberated throughout his altered nervous system.

Rapid, shallow breaths did nothing to hide his state of extreme arousal from the passers-by, many of whom smiled at him in sympathy as they heaved their own gigantic busts around the walk. It was a sign of how common these ongoing physical changes were since The Ripple that most of them knew exactly what he was experiencing. It was all he could do to stand up straight and not melt into a mewling, moaning puddle right in the middle of the market as the spontaneous growth spurt threatened to pull him over the edge all on its own, just as his new mass was threatening to tip him over frontwards.

Just as he was beginning to lose control of his lungs and nearly released the erotic cry burgeoning up from deep within, the sensation began to recede and fade, leaving him frustratingly unfulfilled at the end of his growth. With the rise and fall of his chest the newly enlarged globes of flesh wobbled and swung as if on balance beams, their movement constricted by the sweater dress he’d chosen for tonight. The blush underneath the soft, silvery white skin peeping through the neckline slowly withdrew, leaving him with an enhanced shelf of exposed, pale boob shelf plunging forward and totally obscuring the floor in front of his feet, wherever they were down there.

He wondered if he was as big as his wife, now. A ginger probing with his free hand confirmed the circumference of each lobe was now greater than that of his own head, having nearly doubled from their size before he left. It was by far the largest and most sustained growth spurt he’d had since The Ripple!

“Oh my,” he said to himself. “She’ll certainly want to help me come to grips with these. I wonder if we’ll even be able to wait until after dinner!” he mused with a tittering chuckle. Well, the new dress was holding up admirably so he decided to return to their apartment and save the rest of his money for more clothing to fit his new size when his wife was available to help him choose a new outfit or three.

He sent a text to let his wife know he was on his way back, and slipped the phone back into his purse, resisting the urge to take a picture of his new endowments and spoil the surprise.

He started back, passing another dumpster full of cast-off bras of formerly typical sizes destined for the landfill now that nearly everyone had outgrown them. Perhaps the entire industry would need to re-center their size charts just to keep from running into a wall at double-Z, he thought. There was a wall of people crowded around some part of the sidewalk, obviously captivated by something supremely interesting to them, but he was determined not to get sidetracked and klok-klokked his new shoes a little faster to get around the obstruction.

“Hey! Hey, short-stuff!” a voice cried out from deep within the throng.

His ears felt like someone had blown over their fine hairs and a chill ran up his spine, starting from the twitching base of his tail and splashing all the way up to his horn. He hesitated for just a fraction of a second as the surprise shook him momentarily from his daydreaming about the dinner date with his wife.

Could he have been hearing things? It was impossible. Well, certainly unlikely and highly improbable… but he thought the voice that called was still distinctively male. The very idea caused his heart to flutter and a slight blush to bridge his cheeks over his short little muzzle. It can’t be, he thought, dismissing the notion. With great effort, he forced his thick little legs to continue stepping, carrying him further from the crowd.

He turned the idea over and over in his head as he walked the familiar path back to his apartment building. Last he’d heard, the latest update was that there were less than 1,200 un-modified males left on the planet. The odds of him being called out by one in this city were vanishingly small. And even if it had been, he was probably talking to someone else. Lots of people had shrunk down to ‘pony size,’ as they were calling it. Still, it was hard to dismiss the way his body reacted to that voice. He’d never heard anything about that before. The shuddering, the sudden magnetic pull of all his attention to those brief few words, it was almost like his entire world had collapsed in that two-second time span to fit only the boundaries of those somewhat masculine-sounding tones and the four words they carried with them…

He blinked and returned to the present, with the klok-klokking of his new heels rhythmically carrying him to the front door of the building he called home, where his wife was waiting. He hadn’t even checked for a reply text yet, he realized. Slipping the phone out of his purse as he entered the doorway, he unlocked the screen and had read her reply by the time he was at the elevator.

“Perfect timing! Dinner’s almost ready!” followed by three heart emojis.

The lurching momentum dumped into him by the elevator concentrated heavily in front of him, reminding him of what was really important right now: getting home to show off his new size and compare against his wife’s. After dinner, of course, they’d do a much more thorough comparison…