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Happy birthday to me, Vince thought with a faux-excitable tone. Nobody had even bothered to remember his birthday this year outside of those who paid attention to the reminders, and none of them had bothered to buy him anything this year at all. It was turning into a rather shitty birthday but he didn't really mind anymore. He was just glad he was alive and well.

Okay, sure, he reprimanded himself as he stared at his computer screen a bit too bored with the pictures he was scrolling through, looking for something to finish on his commissioned list. He had a couple of pages done for his birthday, like his friend Jack and his brother Quentin (both of which had collaborated on a piece together in addition to solo pieces), but Vince was honestly feeling like he should have expected more than he got.

The art in question was all transformation-based work. Jack drew Vince turning into a rather rotund pig with a sexy beard, but Jack's piece was nowhere near as good as his imagination and the role-plays they did (not to say Jack did poor art; it was truthfully great work and always improving, but the material was so similar to other work that it felt like more of the same). Quentin's piece was considerably different, with Vince becoming similarly flabby, but a gator instead. The way he was drawn in this one was exceptional. It really showed the difference in their art styles, however, when they had combined to show the three of them together in a piece they'd collaborated on; a very interesting concept art of them becoming a new version of Cerberus, with Vince in the middle wearing a birthday hat for presumably comic measures.

However, sitting here now, Vince had been a bit bored by the pictures already. It wasn't they were terrible gifts or terribly unexpected surprises, but the fact it was all he'd gotten from anyone online or offline was a bit disappointing. Nobody had remembered, and the fact he'd been forced to work it meant he hadn't gotten enough time to celebrate the way he wanted to as well.

As he sat there, scrolling through his art list, one hand on his bearded chin and one on is mouse, clicking through the folder of in-progress art while keeping his face less than a foot from the screen, his expression blank and apathetic, he wondered what he'd actually do if he could have celebrated his birthday properly. The options had to be endless, he reasoned, but living with his family was one reason it was all poorly represented in his mind; he'd have to share with anyone in the house if he bought anything, and he knew that.

There was the long sequence of music he had queued up playing into his headphones, but given his mood it also appeared at first listen to sound the same. It was his favorite band, and it helped him focus on his art usually, but tonight it felt like he was just listening to an unending album of similar music with words that could easily be blurred into the background of the guitars and drums.

It was a surprise, then, that he got a knock at the door and had to pull his headphones away to go see what it was that he'd missed probably. The door opened and he saw a man in a black trench coat there, the kind made of leather that looked like it had been inspired by The Matrix or something, and a dark, matching fedora that obscured his face along with the jacket.

"Mr. Ulrich?" the voice was rough, deep, like a sandblaster against a chainsaw while underwater. Vince was surprised to hear his name called like this, so formally.

"Uh, yeah. I guess." Vince said with a shrug. He was the only man in the household so of course he'd have to be the Mr. Ulrich, wouldn't he?

"Mr. Ulrich," came the voice from the face he couldn't see in the dark, "I have a package for you that will make you a very happy man."

Vince rolled his eyes and sardonically asked, "Is it a bucket of Blue Sky? Oh, no wait, it's a jar of fudgy shit. How about a fruit basket without the fruit?" Vince asked to which the man just sat there unflinching, taking the jokes easily.

"If you're finished," the man began.

"Maybe it's a mushroom that makes me double my size?" Vince added and the man waited patiently.

"I have a gift for you, really." The man calmly replied, "It'll make all your dreams come true."

"So I'll be a rich artist with no need to do anything but sit on my ass all day drawing while all the California blondes hang off my arms at the same time? Is that what this gift is?" He asked as the man produced the small box from his jacket.

"Hm, if that is truly what you desire," the man said with a brisk calmness that made Vince think of the Tranquil from Dragon Age.

"It's a bit small to be all that, isn't it?" Vince said as he looked at the box. He took it into his hand, holding it up to the light and looking at it. The words on the box were ornate and gold-painted, embossed really, and looked like a brand name but the formal and fancy writing were nearly illegible.

He put the box back down and looked for the man who was already gone. How'd he do that? He had been there one minute, then gone the next, Vince thought with a spooky chill shivering up his spine. He took the box inside and closed the door. Maybe it was a bomb. He could have all the California blondes hanging off his arms if he went to Heaven, probably.

Vince set the box at the side of his computer tower and went back to browsing his art folders for a minute, but the box kept his curiosity. It didn't sound like it was ticking. It was small, sort of flat, and not very big at all. Inside it was probably an object the size of a small bar of travel-sized soap. That's all it could be.

Probably harmless.

Boring art, boring commission ideas that I wouldn't even touch if I weren't getting paid.

It didn't even weigh anything.

Wonder if F.A. has anything good going on tonight?

It's weird he knew my name.

Vince sighed and then turned to look at the box again. It was still sitting there, the ornate writing glinting a bit in the light because of the gold painting. He reached over, took the box, and then started to look for the top. It was all seamless, the box itself seemed to be one smooth edge folded around itself into a rectangular prism with no seams or even a real edge to the outside material. There was one particular little hole in one of the sides of the box, but it looked too little for anything besides a pencil's tip to squeeze through. Vince found a pencil, then carefully pressed the little hole to see what would happen.

He coughed a bit as the hole emitted a spray that coated his face with a light mist of cologne. It was luck that he didn't get any in his mouth, but a little did tickle his nose and he sneezed too. As he started to realize the fact the box had just sprayed cologne at him, he took another sniff of it and began to feel flush and light-headed. It was... it was... he couldn't think of anything to call it except manly. The true smell of a man, a real man, a burly man who enjoyed the occasional cigar and definitely attracted a woman's attention. That was what his face smelled like now.

He aimed the hole at his chest and sprayed a little on himself with the pencil as if it were more practiced this time. His body soon smelled of the musk and he had to admit, the images in his head of being a knock-out lady-killer was all very arousing. He felt a bulge in his pants tenting upwards and Vince knew he had to keep it quiet or else he'd be in trouble if anyone saw him.

That was when he began to notice something else was terribly wrong. His arousal was a bit too strong to resist, but even though he tried, he could see his body was different. For the first time in his life, he was confronted with the idea of having a considerably burly body to begin with, but it wasn't enough to think of it. In fact, he'd stopped considering how sexy it was to be a stocky, nay, fat with muscled arms, kind of guy with a nice beard, but suddenly as he looked at himself, it was like he'd achieved a certain body goal. He was bigger, he felt fatter, stronger, and it was nearly bursting his shirt already.

He stood up and hurried to the bathroom, locked the door and that was when he saw it. His body had really grown in the mirror. He had to be nearly fifty pounds bigger already. His gut stuck out from under the shirt's bottom hem, and his chest looked like it was ready to pull the collar in half. His arms filled the sleeves to bursting even without his flexing, and he knew he had to try moving them. When he did, a full double bicep pose followed by a more Herculean pose, the shirt tore its sleeves right off and the collar shredded down to the top of his gut. It was useless now, but he looked so powerful and heavy.

His legs were wider apart but still touching at the inner thighs, and his jeans looked ready to snap off. He assumed that were the jeans not a heavier material than his shirt he would have easily torn through them now. Vince pulled the shirt from his body with a satisfying rip, and the gut, solid and round, jiggled only once before resting over the top of those jeans, heavier than it had ever been. He knew he was close to three-hundred pounds already before this new development, but looking at himself now, he had to be a good three-fifty or even more than that.

The big guy also seemed taller in the mirror, and when he realized he could easily see his ankles and part of his calves in the now-skintight jeans, he realized he was taller too. Vince had to be closer to six-foot-eight at this point, but he looked no less built than he had always fantasized. The man sure looked like a big bear in the picture of his mind, especially with the thick beard he sported on his face and the copious amounts of body hair that he had now too. He wondered how this had been possible, but he didn't get to wonder much more because just then, something new caught his eye.

Or rather, it was his eyes that caught his attention. The color was a gold, like a werewolf might look in the movies or that terabytes of porn he'd browsed on the Internet, but these were his eyes now. They were really that way. And he knew exactly what was going on then. He smiled at himself and licked his lips. Strangely, or perhaps expectedly, as he did, they changed to a more leathery, smoother appearance, and turned black in color. He liked that, but it was the first of many new things to come.

He watched the furry patches on his body twitch and flow to life like a breeze was blowing over them. At first, it looked like Vince was just a hairy man, but he wasn't about to be that way anymore. The hair darkened on his body, becoming black as the night as it thickened too, spreading out over his chest, down in a thick trail on his belly, and into his jeans that were finally giving up the fight and tearing at the seams. The hair on his arms and legs was tingling, spreading in thicker patches and wrapping all the way around the limbs easily without any resistance. As he went to flex his beefy arms again, he could see the black fur covered the whole arm and over the hand now too.

The black fur that was covering him reached his face as the beard and his regular hair began to shorten, but thicken as it was overtaken by the fur rapidly spreading over his body. It made him feel momentarily a bit uneasy as he started to worry if he could still be drop dead sexy to any ladies as a wolf-man, but once it spread over his body and face completely, he knew he was not going to get a choice in it. There was no turning back, and he didn't know if he could turn back even if he had wanted to at this point.

As his fur completely covered over him now, he closed his eyes and imagined for a moment having the strength to pick up his girl. It was going to be a considerable challenge finding a girl who liked big, bury wolves, but it's California, he thought to himself with a laugh. There's something about California girls, he laughed a bit more and opened his eyes, nearly panicking when he realized he was unable to see colors anymore. He could see without his glasses, but he couldn't see colors.

The rest of his face was steadily distorting and changing as well now, and he groaned a bit as he felt the pressure in his mouth and nose. It felt like he had a sneeze backing up but he couldn't push it out. And then, when he least expected it, out the sneeze came and with it, a long canine snout. His nose turned up at the tip and turned a black and leathery texture while the rest of his nose kept the fur that was covering his face. Below the nose that could smell everything in the room, everything in the house really, was a longer mouth with sharper fangs and a longer, thick tongue that he used to feel the points on his fangs. As he blinked, looking at it in the mirror, he could tell that he had it in his peripheral vision between his eyes too. He went cross-eyed trying to see it, but just laughed when he realized that he could see it better in the mirror. It didn't hurt as bad as he had thought it might, but it was definitely less painful when it had finished growing.

When he found his gaze returning to the mirror, he watched as his ears began to shift forward and migrate to the top of his head. For a long moment, as they moved, becoming triangular, he could hear nothing but the liquid sounds of tissue and cartilage shifting around inside his cranium, and it nearly made him panic again, but once the wolf ears had finished moving into position, his hearing returned stronger and sharper than it ever had been and then some. He loved that, and it made his ears swivel a bit as he tried to pick up every sound he could.

He folded his arms to his chest but stopped just shy as he watched his hands beginning to thicken at the palms and fingertips, thick obsidian pads forming there as his fingernails took on a similarly onyx color and pushed into sharp claws. He snapped his maw open and shut with an exclamation that came out extremely loud for his new ears, and he realized instantly he was going to have to learn to talk a bit quieter. Ooh, he thought to himself with glee, ladies love a man with the tall, dark, quiet, and handsome type. He surely was all of those things now. He flexed his paw-like hands, still considerably more functional than he was expecting, and then started to let out a canine whine of pleasure.

As if in response to his hands changing, his feet began to dramatically shift as well. His toes began to fuse together into a more four-toed look while his heel and arch cracked and shifted, forcing them both higher into the air and pushing Vince into the almost seven foot range. He held tightly onto the bathroom counter with his huge paws now as he felt his legs restructuring entirely to afford him a new digitigraded stance, but he didn't like it very much at first. Only after a few curious steps could he get used to the way he would have to carry all that bulk now. It was awkward even after a few more steps, but he knew he'd get used to it eventually. Unlike a woman learning to wear high heels, his legs were built to walk this way, and soon it would be a matter of time for him to learn properly walking.

Without much fanfare, or even any pressure like his face and feet had given him, his tail had snuck its way out of his spine while he'd been practicing his new gait. He wagged it, feeling it come under his control mostly, and he blushed a bit at the thought. It was amazing, and he loved it. Thick, bushy, truly emotional to see, and he loved it. His tail knew his thoughts, and instinctively began to wag gently as well. He couldn't have been happier to see it.

Wearing only a pair of too-tight, now-shredded jeans, he started to feel the changes to his body wind down with his chest barreling out a bit, making his mounds for pectorals seem even bigger and more powerful than they had before, and better framing his gut. Vince was amazed at how this had happened, and when he smelled the musk, he felt his mind ease into this new colorful mentality. He was a big, bad wolf, all right. A caricaturist would say any man who howled after women was bound to be a wolf in disguise, but Vince just thought it was a very nice birthday gift.

And he had only one person he could think of to share this gift with. He left the bathroom and started over towards his phone, picking it up off his computer desk and flipping through it. Momentarily, he felt a deep part of his mind tell him that he couldn't possibly know who he was looking for, but he found her number before he could finish this thought and it never resurfaced in his mind.

"Hello?" It sounded like her, and Vince grinned, baring his fangs to nobody in particular as he felt himself getting aroused just hearing her voice.

"Hey Amy," he growled in a husky voice that was far lower than he expected it to be, quiet enough that he couldn't hurt his own ears and enough that she could still hear him clearly, "It's Vince. You free?"

"Vince!" She said with a ton of relief in her voice. Who the hell was Amy, part of his mind said, "Of course I am free for you!"

"Good. I'm going out for a bit and I'll be by to pick you up in about twenty minutes. Wear something... simple." He knew instinctively that she knew what he was saying.

"Going out for dinner, my big, bad wolf?" she asked with a playfully flirty voice.

As Vince picked up a box of cigars that was sitting to one side of his computer desk, bemused by the fact that it was there in place of the boxed gift the man had given him before, he replied, "Hungry like the wolf."

He hung up afterwards and pulled out a cigar. The labels on each cigar was the same ornate gold-painted words as had been on the initial boxed gift, but he didn't know what it said. He just knew it was an earthy, thick-leafed cigar that tasted good to his wolf tongue and smelled like a warm sunrise looked to his nose. It didn't bother Amy either, Vince thought to himself as he started to go find something new to wear in his closet.

Once he had put on the new outfit, a nice button-down shirt that was a near-pastel yellow and a new pair of dark blue jeans, he placed one of the cigars to his wolf lips and clipped the tip with his sharp claws. Upon lighting the cigar, making sure the tip was burning evenly, he closed his eyes as the final change overtook his face. Age settled in on his body and his mind as he went from an early twenties to a mid-forties. A couple of laugh lines around his wolf maw, some crow's feet, and a singular but heavy wrinkle in his brow brought out the masculinity of his age while the black fur only took on a slight greying at the temples and in his chin. He felt older, but also better. Tougher, stronger, fatter, and yet happier. His birthday spirits had been lifted, and Amy was going to make sure that he got to have the only present he really wanted, quality time with a loved one.

When Vince walked out of the house and down to his car, his tail was wagging the whole time and he was dimly aware that the full moon was shining down on him. He turned to it, thinking of the man who had given the gift to him, and he tipped his head back, holding the thick cigar with a paw, and howled his respectful gratitude to the powers that had given him this body. He wasn't going to waste this gift. He was going to make the most of it.