Becoming the Bear

ByPapaWereBearandUrsusMajr

(What follows is a work of fiction. Enjoy the fantasy, but please do not confuse it with reality. None of the incidents portrayed happened, and none of the characters are meant to depict actual persons, living or dead. This story contains descriptions of sex between consenting adult males. If such offends you or is illegal for you to read, please leave now.)

Copyright, 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this story may be reproduced by any means, electronic or otherwise, without express permission of the authors.

Chapter 1

Mitch Wilkins walked into the main hall of Thomas Jefferson High School with just a touch of trepidation. He hadn't been here in almost exactly forty years; not since his graduation. He looked around and realized that he was early. Walking down the empty hall, he was hit with a wave of not especially welcome nostalgia. "Buck up, man," he thought to himself. "You've come. You're here, make the best of it."

Notices had come for the ten-year reunion and he had pitched them in the trash. After ten years, the memories were still painful; the rejection, the teasing, the cruel pranks and names were still raw in his memory. He stroked his new mustache as he read the reunion letter. It was a thick, wide, black mustache and it looked good on his face. He'd tried a goatee a couple of times through his college years but it just didn't suit his face, so he had trimmed it down to just the mustache. He'd given thought to a beard but decided that look was too 'old' for him.

He had graduated from college with honors and had been working on his doctorate. Consequently, he felt no reason to return to his old high school and reopen old wounds. Besides, he told himself he didn't have time for such nonsense between work and his studies.

After twenty years the notices came and again Mitch pitched them in the trash. Mitch's black mustache had given way to a full jet-black beard. He figured he was old enough now to carry it off. His face wasn't so 'boyish' anymore and the beard gave him a certain air of 'maturity'. Mitch had been hairy in high school, but not completely covered; now, twenty years later, he had a full pelt of dark hair that almost obscured his skin. His barber shaved the back of his neck below the collar, but it was obvious after just a week that Mitch was a very hairy man when the hair grew back as neck stubble, thick as ever.

Mitch had projects that needed to be completed, he had a busy life and it was mostly full. Well, full with work, anyway. Somehow, the social aspects of life seemed to elude him. He was very shy in social situations, though lecturing was easy enough. When it came to personal interaction, he was tongue-tied and could not voice how he felt. Mitch was almost forty and felt he was very distant from the young man who had survived high school.

Most of the memories had faded but a few lingered. He remembered being called ape, monkey man, Captain Hairball or simply "freak" by his classmates. Mitch had thick chest and belly hair even then and was beginning to grow stray hairs on his back when his classmates were just barely getting some hair around their nipples. Mitch had started shaving occasionally at eleven and could grow a full beard by fifteen. Since late grade school until he graduated from TJ High he'd been teased about his body hair. Other kids used to ask him if his son had come to school with him or say that he was so hairy he didn't have five o'clock shadow, he had two o'clock shadow. He was dubbed 'Ape' or 'Animal', and they weren't terms of affection.

The teasing made Mitch a loner, it isolated him and it locked him away within himself so no one could get in and hurt him. He remained alone as he got older, never getting close to anyone for fear of being hurt. In college, he wore long sleeved shirts that covered up his hairy arms and neck. He never wore shorts or a tank top when exercising, opting for long sleeved jerseys and long legged sweatpants to cover his hairiness and he never took physical ed courses that would reveal his pelt, like swimming. Mitch didn't have a social life, he studied and stayed in the dorms for the most part. A few times he had tried to reach out to someone, but these fumbling attempts hadn't worked out. In the end he felt it was better to be alone than to run the risk of being hurt again.

When the notices came for the thirty-year class reunion, Mitch was away on vacation in Europe. By now, he was a successful research scientist and almost fifty years old. His beard was salt and pepper and his pelt was just as salted as his beard with silver strands all over his body; Mitch liked the feel of his body hair and had come to appreciate it. He no longer let the barber shave his neck, allowing it to grow naturally. In many respects, he had learned simply to not care what the rest of the world thought. He wore shorts now, and tank tops, kept his body fairly well fit though he had more than a bit of a belly. He would get looks from people as he jogged by, children sometimes stared and laughed; but by now Mitch had forged thick enough armor to deflect the snickers and stares. What completely threw him though were the rare looks of appreciation; they made Mitch uncomfortable. He knew how to disregard revulsion and ridicule, he had been practicing since grade school on that; attraction to his body was quite something else and it made him feel like a freak all over again. It broke through the 'I don't care' armor he'd grown.

Mitch had written many papers and was considered a brilliant mind in the field of genetics. In fact, his college had asked him to speak to their graduating class only last year as an honored guest. His high school's reunion committee sent him an invitation to speak at the reunion a year in advance. The alumni association wanted to honor him at the upcoming reunion. Mitch crumpled up the letter and pitched it in the trash.

"Yeah, they want to honor me now, now that I would be worth bragging about." He muttered darkly. Standing by the trash can, his mood clouded as he once more began to remember painful events from school he thought he had erased.

He thought about the time some of the guys on the football team had caught him in the locker room, held him down and had stuck packing tape to his chest and pulled it off. He remembered it hurt, but not half so much as them parading it around after showing how much hair they'd pulled off and telling everyone who saw it that it was a small fraction of what still remained on their victim.

"This is fucked," Mitch thought as he angrily flipped through the rest of the mail. He poured himself another cup of coffee and sat. "Its almost like they are trying to buy my friendship now that I could be an 'asset' to them," he grumbled. He thought about all the friends he hadn't had and the one he sort of had. His name had been Walter. He was a big guy, good looking and popular but only graduated at the same time as Mitch because he'd been held back a year for bad grades in his junior year. Walter Miller -- God, Mitch had had such fantasies about Walter in high school. He'd always sought to be close to Walter; he wanted to be Walter's close friend, his buddy. But that never happened and at the moment he didn't know why he thought about him.

He had a crush on Walter then and he thought about how different his life might have been if he'd been Walter's buddy... ah, 'what if'... his life had a lot of 'what ifs'. He thought about all his missed opportunities and possible 'happy endings'... What if he'd talked to that well built, hairy handed bearded guy in the bar who was giving him 'the eye' a month ago instead of just smiling, paying his tab and leaving. What if he'd actually acted on the invitation to meet a local bear from the chat room for coffee? What if he'd come out in college? Mitch shook his head to clear out his sad musings but his thoughts turned again to Walter.

Walter had had a respectable amount of fur on his chest, not nearly as much as Mitch, but a good amount and like the hair on his head, it was dark, nearly black. He also had a reputation for being an independent guy. He was popular, but he didn't hang out with the 'in crowd'. His popularity seemed to stem from his 'independence' and self-confidence. The fact that he didn't care what other's thought and he spoke his mind seemed to cast him in the part of 'rebel' and that was exceedingly attractive to most of the girls and seemed to make other guys want to follow his lead.

Walter had sort of lessened the blow for Mitch on several occasions when he was being teased in the shower room. On one particular occasion, when 'Moose', one of the nearly hairless stars of the football team was making monkey noises at Mitch, Walter told him that it took balls to grow body hair and then looked pointedly at Moose's smooth chest; leaving the suggestion that maybe Moose didn't have any balls just hanging in the air. After a heartbeat of silence allowing the suggestion to sink in, laughter erupted from everywhere in the locker room; but it wasn't directed at Mitch this time. It quickly spread throughout the locker room that Walt had said that Moose didn't have any balls and Moose decided to take out his embarrassment on Walt. Moose threw a punch and Walter, cool headed as always, just stepped out of the way. Moose overbalanced and slipped on the wet tile, banging his head on one of the concrete and stainless shower pedestals, bringing more laughter from the crowd. When the coach Franklin got there, the laughing crowd suddenly melted away. Moose was unconscious and bleeding from a nasty cut on his forehead. He'd hit pretty hard and the coach was quick to bark at Walter for half killing Moose.

The coach quickly found out that Moose had done it to himself and it was no one's fault but his own. Moose was bundled up into the coach's car and taken to the hospital. It was the news around school the next day that Moose had a concussion and wouldn't be playing football until he healed. Mitch thought about how Walter had winked at him when the laughter began and how the teasing seemed to lessen when Walt was around after that. The act of kindness was all the more appreciated for it being a rare occurrence in Mitch's high school life. He actually sort of felt sorry he'd missed the thirtieth-year reunion when he thought about Walt. Perhaps he'd go to the fortieth.

Ten more years passed. When the notices came for the fortieth-year class reunion, Mitch was a mature man with a full beard that had gone mostly white along with his body hair. He'd read everything he could find published about hirsutism and it had become a sort of hobby to search the net for new articles on the genetics of the condition. Mitch had become somewhat of an expert on it, though it wasn't his specific field of professional interest. Nearing retirement, he had not taken on any new research projects in the last two years and was rapidly completing those underway. His other hobby of investing in real estate and mutual funds had prospered of late as well. He wasn't fantastically wealthy, but he had enough money to travel when and where he wanted to and indulge his love of music and art without dipping into retirement funds.

Mitch had succeeded in killing his junior high and high school demons. He was in his own and the world's eyes a confident, successful man; a leader in his field. So, after forty years, Mitch decided he'd go back and actually see what had become of his old tormentors. Who knew, maybe even Walt would be there and they could catch up.

Chapter 2

The school had changed some in the last forty years, but the layout was basically the same. There were new buildings and some of the old ones had been modernized; but there was much that Mitch remembered. Mitch walked through the main hall to the greeting and sign in table. In short order he had a 'Hello, my name is' sticker on his suit coat. The volunteers working the table didn't seem to remember him and Mitch inwardly sighed in relief. He was surprised to find himself afraid that someone would see him and tag him with one of the many derogatory nicknames he'd collected while in high school.

"Oh, get a grip!" he thought.

Mitch stepped through the door and was immediately hit by another wave of memories; it wasn't just the look of the place, though little of that had changed except the paint color. The basketball backstops cranked up high on the walls, the bleachers rolled back and folded into their storage lockers along the long walls of the gym, all that looked familiar; but it was more the odor of the place that pitched Mitch back in time. It was a mixture of male sweat, rubber, Heet, lingering peripheral smells of under arm deodorant and foot fungus spray and the damp chlorine smell of wet concrete that all gyms and locker rooms seem to share in older schools. The faint odor, only partially covered by disinfectant, almost instantly brought forth strong memories, ones he had nearly forgotten.

In particular, Mitch was remembering his first week as a freshman in this gym. His PE teacher, Mr. Franklin, had been an imposing figure, standing 6'2" with a barrel chest and a blond crew cut with silver at his temples. His thick gold and silver mustache and end of the day scruff enhanced his already masculine aura. His bulky form spoke of an athletic past. Indeed, he looked like exactly what he was... a high school and college fullback who had added a layer of comfortable padding as he had aged. His legs were still thick, arms, too; but the belly had morphed from a washboard to a more rounded gut, almost but not quite a beer belly. An eagle tattoo on his outer right biceps looked like one that many service men had after WWII and was only visible beneath the thick hair owing to the fact that the hair was as light as his mustache. It still made the tattoo hard to distinguish as more than a blob from a distance of more than six feet. Mitch remembered the instant surge of lust in his groin as he looked closely at his sixth period teacher.

He had been dreading PE, based on his experience in junior high with all the teasing about his newly sprouting body hair. The first time he had been called 'monkey boy' and all the other kids in the locker room had taken up the chant, it really hurt. He'd been depressed for weeks. Throughout junior high, a good day had been when he was ignored by the others. A bad day was... well, most of them had been bad days. Since he had only gotten furrier as he moved towards high school, he could only imagine what was in store for him. But looking at Coach Franklin, standing there with his clipboard calling roll, he thought that at least there would be something to look forward to in gym this year. He carefully feasted his eyes on the tall, stocky man, noting the fur creeping out of the collar of his tee shirt and the golden hair on his arms and legs and stored the images for later enjoyment in the privacy of his bed.

The memory of that first day faded and was replaced with one from later in high school. Mitch had been talked into being the manager for the varsity football team, since that year he had last period PE. He took the job partly because he would get to skip some of PE during football season, but also because he would get to work with Coach Franklin in the locker room and on the field. It also meant that, because it was last period, he could skip showering and just go home. He always enjoyed looking at the coach's stocky body and the luxuriant arm and leg hair that promised a thick pelt on his chest. He found the look of the coach with his golden, end-of-the-day stubble and the mustache blazing in the late afternoon sun gave him wood he struggled to hide.

He imagined that one day the coach would notice all the ragging and teasing and would stride up and chase the bastards off. He'd take Mitch aside and try to make Mitch feel better about himself. He pull up his jersey, showing Mitch his ample densely hairy chest and belly and say, "Don't let them get to ya kid. Real men like us have hairy bodies; they're just jealous 'cause they don't have any. They're intimidated by you and that's why they're making fun of you." He'd wink, tousle Mitch's hair and tell him to get back on the field. Such were the things of which Mitch's adolescent dreams were made.

But one day, the Gods smiled on Mitch in reality and took pity on him for all the teasing and the loneliness. They threw him a bone; but what a bone! It wasn't a measly rib bone, no, they'd thrown him a heavy thighbone with scraps of meat still on it!

Football practice had gone very late and it was Parents Back to School Night, so teachers and parents would be returning to the school for the program. Indeed, some teachers had not even left after 7th period was over. Coach Franklin, like all the rest of the team, was hot and sweaty from the long practice. The rank smell would not go unnoticed with the parents. The guys made a beeline for the showers and coach made a beeline for the PE office, which had a shower of its own. Mr. Franklin planned on showering and changing into clean clothes there rather than going home before Back to School Night started. He reached for the shower handles and muttered a curse; no water. The janitor had mentioned having to shut off some of the water in the gym from maintenance work on a persistent leak. Damn! Nothing for it but to use the main showers. Most of the team were done anyway and dressing at their lockers or already gone home.

Mitch was checking in some equipment and looked up in time to see the coach striding down the row of lockers, butt naked. His protective instincts failed him briefly, as he stared openly at the coach, whose back was covered in silver-shot gold fur. A wide set of shoulders were equally furred and tapered only slightly to still-muscular glutes that had dark golden swirls of hair covering them. Mitch nearly passed out. He found a reason to go to his locker, which had a view of the showers and with fortune smiling upon him, the row where his locker was located was empty. He carefully looked around the corner and was able to see Mr. Franklin soaped up in profile, just working shampoo into his flattop with his eyes closed.

Thick wet, fur, clung to his softened, but still impressively muscular body. Mitch had a stiffy he knew he would have trouble concealing. He knew that coach was close to the end of the routine. For most guys shampoo is the last job, and coach's flattop didn't take long to get clean. Mitch headed back to the office. About five minutes later, he was (as he had fervently prayed for) treated to the front view as Franklin passed back through the emptying locker room to his office, now dripping. The coach's chest and belly were thickly furred and Mitch loved the look of the silver spread across Coach's pecs. The water made all of it cling to his skin. A heavy cock swung slightly as he walked and a dense bush of dark gold hair covering his crotch made Mitch nearly pass out again.

"Hey, Mitch! Toss me a towel, will ya?" Coach Franklin's deep voice snapped Mitch back to his duties and he reached for the asked-for towel from the pile of clean ones he was unwrapping. Coach took the towel, ran it through his flattop dried his mustache and standing naked right in front of Mitch while doing so. Had the coach noticed his stare? If so, he never said. He thanked Mitch and headed into the coach's office to finish drying off and change to street clothes for the evening. Mitch went home, the sights playing over and over again in his head, making it mandatory that he walk with his books carried in front to conceal the raging hard on. For months afterward, Mitch relieved himself to those images. They became his favorite jack off fantasy.

They also gave him hope that he was not a freak of nature. Surely someone as hairy as the coach must have been hairy in school, too; maybe as hairy as he was? Obviously, the coach had survived. In fact, the coach seemed popular both with students and with other teachers, so maybe it was possible to have friends even if you were a freak or a monkey boy; just maybe.