Story: Shapeshifter

Shapeshifter
by hangdogmi September 2015

The woods were quiet as I hiked down the trail through the big park a little ways out of the city. I liked this trail the last few times I’d hiked it, but those were weekend visits and there were always too many people. It’s a Tuesday this time, so it’s only me and birds and the occasional chipmunk chattering in the underbrush. I wore snug jeans, sneakers, and a loose t-shirt that let air in to cool my torso. I didn’t stop to nature-watch, because I was thinking more of what I was going to do with the rope in the small backpack I had.

I was headed toward a particular tree a little ways off the trail, about a half-hour from the parking lot where I left my car. It was a large, older tree with good stout limbs only a couple of feet over my head. The rope in my backpack would look good dangling from one of the limbs. Then I’d put my head through it and dangle, too.

It’s not that I was suicidal, really. I was a kid when I discovered how much I liked tying things around my neck, around the time I discovered masturbation. The more I did it, the more my fantasy developed. I progressed, slowly at first, from a belt to a bicycle inner tube to rope, and then to wanting to get the rope really tight, At 30, my current age, I hadn’t gotten my feet off the ground yet, but I’d done tiptoes, and now I wanted to try going a little farther. I thought I could get out of it if I did hang with my feet off the ground. I realized I could end up dead, but ... maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. I really wanted to get the rope thing right.

The farther I walked, the more I thought about my plan, and my cock began to snake down my pant leg. My heartbeat was faster, more due to my thoughts than exertion. I was kind of crazy from being so noose-horny. Five steps past a trail blaze, I headed off the trail to the right into the woods. A few more minutes, and a left turn, and there was the tree.

And there was a man looking up at a noose that dangled from one of the limbs over a short log stood on its end. The guy was slender, maybe in his 20s and about my age, with long dark hair and wearing just a pair of gym shorts. He heard me and looked my way, his mouth open in shock. We just looked at each other.

“Fuck,” he said.

“Dude, it’s OK. I just... picked a bad time to go hiking...” I was stammering, but tried to smile. He just looked down, disconsolate. “The noose is for you, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I finally get the courage up to check out ... not your fault, I guess, just bad luck for me. As usual.”

“Bad luck for me too,” I said. “You’re using my tree.” I showed him the rope from my backpack.

“Fuck,” he said again, smiling a little this time.

It was still awkward. Neither of us was ready for this. Part of me thought that I should try to talk him out of killing himself. He didn’t look like he was hanging himself for fun, really. I averted my eyes from him and looked around. There were clothes and shoes near the base of the tree behind him, probably his.

“So,” I said, thinking what the fuck, “are you planning to check out here, or ... ?”

It took him a moment to respond, “Yeah. Checking out.”

I nodded. “It’s ok. If that’s what you want, it’s not my job to stop you.”

He was still looking down, but he kinda went “Huh.” Then, “Guess I didn’t think you’d say that.”

“I could try to talk you out of hanging yourself, but since I came here to hang myself, I don’t really have any room to talk, do I?”

“No, maybe not.”

I got a couple of steps closer. He was kind of cute, really, though this was probably the wrong time to tell him that. “I mean, unless you want to talk about it...?”

He shook his head.

“Is there anything I can help with, then?” I said quietly.

He looked up at me, mostly without expression. At least he didn’t seem sad now. “No, I’ll be OK.” But he didn’t say, “Go away.” Instead he looked up at the noose, then down to the log he had set up to stand on to reach the noose. He put a foot on it, but it was a big step up, and he wobbled a little and stepped back down. I went up to him and offered a hand. He looked at me, then braced himself against me. He made it up onto the log and stood steady.

I backed only a couple of steps. He didn’t seem to mind me being there. His nipples were a little below my eye-level. I looked up at the noose when he did. It had a simple slipknot in it. My rope had a 7-turn hangman’s knot, but his slipknot would work just as well. He reached for it and closed his eyes as he pulled the noose over his head and down to his neck.

“How’s it look?” he asked quietly.

I took a good look. It was not very tight, and the knot was right behind his head. I decided to be forward. I reached up and adjusted the knot so it was just behind his ear, then slid it snug so it touched his neck all the way around. I even gently pulled his hair out from under the rope. “There... that should work better.”

He swallowed, feeling the rope against his Adam’s apple as he did. “Thanks,” he said.

I stepped back, and as I did I noticed his shorts had a bulge, and the tip of his cock sticking out from below his shorts. I hoped he didn’t notice that I noticed, but he said “Yeah, I know.”

Maybe he had more than one reason for hanging himself, after all. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Aaron.” He didn’t ask my name, and that was just as well.

“I hope this gets you peace, Aaron.”

“Thanks,” he finally said. He fidgeted a bit, and then stood still. There were still birds, but otherwise the woods were quiet. Several minutes passed.

“It’s harder than it looks,” he said.

“I bet.” Maybe my presence was making him hesitate, but I didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t even about my own plans now, I realized. My own cock was stirring again. I wanted to watch Aaron drop off the log and hang. I wasn't even thinking of hanging myself now.

“It’s ok, You can do this. That’s what you’re here for. Just one more step, is all.”

More minutes passed. He stood with his eyes closed for a while, then he looked down at me right when I was back to looking at his crotch, which was still bulging. I had an idea.

“Mind if I...” I asked, as I reached up and slid his shorts down a little way, exposing his bush and the root of his cock. He didn’t say anything, so I slipped them all the way to his mid-thigh, exposing his cock, balls, and ass. He had plenty of crotch fur and hairy balls. His cock rose a little, arcing over his ballsac. His musk filled my nose. I had a tent of my own in my button-fly jeans.

Instead of paying attention to my cock, I reached up and gently brushed my fingers on Aaron’s. It jumped. I stroked it slightly and then grasped it with my whole hand. It responded rapidly, getting stiff with about five tugs. I looked up at Aaron, and he looked a bit conflicted. “Ok?” I asked.

“Um yeah,” he said. “Feels good.”

“You deserve to feel good. You know the rope is going to make you feel good, too. It’s going to take good care of you.” I kept stroking his cock, which had a little dampness at the tip now. I watched Aaron closely to make sure he wasn’t too close to orgasm. After another minute or two of stroking, I let his cock go and let it stand up from his crotch fur.

“Ready?”

He took a breath. “I, um...”

“Just take one foot and dangle it next to the log.”

Aaron closed his eyes, and he lifted up his left foot, letting it drop alongside the log. It did tighten the rope just a little. The foot went back up to the log. Aaron was breathing hard.

“Almost there," I said, keeping my voice calm. I didn’t want him to feel pressured, though I was getting a bit antsy for the show to happen. I let him rest for a moment. Then he picked up his left foot again. Maybe he was ready.

I kicked the log out backwards from under his right foot. I didn’t realize I was thinking about it doing that, but I did it. The log tipped over with a surprising amount of noise.

Aaron dropped slightly, his eyes wide open in surprise. He was finally hanging. His shorts slid farther down his legs. His cock, which had softened a little with his uncertainty, was now fully hard and pointing up again. He swung a bit, but wasn’t struggling yet. His mouth was working, trying to get air into his lungs. I could hear him make small gagging sounds, but I didn’t think he was getting much air. His noose was sunk into his neck, crinkling some of the skin and certainly crimping his throat closed.

The knot in the noose pushed his head to the side and slightly down. I looked up into his reddening face. He looked at me and tried to speak a couple of words, but no sound came out. I couldn’t tell what he was trying to say.

Aaron’s feet kicked a little. He was trying to find the ground, but it was a few inches below his toes. His face contorted as he tried his best to breathe. It looked as if the noose prevented any air from reaching his lungs at all. He wasn’t really fighting it yet, but he wasn’t still. Me, I just watched him hang. I knew I wasn’t going to end his struggles now. I couldn’t help groping my hard cock through my jeans. Aaron’s shorts dropped completely to the ground, leaving him utterly naked.

Then Aaron’s movements changed. He started thrashing more, trying to reach up with his hands toward the noose gripping his neck so tightly. But his hands would only reach partway toward the noose, and then drop back down to his sides. I looked closely into his eyes and saw they were dilated and just staring. The end was coming for Aaron. He was no longer able to stop the rope from killing him. He rope-danced while I watched slack-jawed, in awe of the beauty of Aaron’s nude body dancing with the noose.

I watched Aaron’s struggles become just pointless jerking as the minutes passed. His kicking feet soon were just twitching. Then I realized I was watching for him to move again, and he wasn’t moving at all. The rope still swung him back and forth, but in ever-smaller movements, until finally he was hanging still. A bead of precum dripped as if on a long string from the tip of his still-hard cock.

I roughly pulled my button fly open and let my hard cock feel the air. It only took a few strokes to get it to shoot. As the orgasm took over, I tried to point my cock straight up so it shot on me, not outward. When I was done, I was shaking. But Aaron wasn’t moving.

I gave him a few minutes. Once I thought I saw his eyelids flutter, but I wasn’t sure. His face was relaxed, and if it wasn’t for his half-open eyes I would’ve thought he’d just gone to sleep.

Finally I stuffed my still-wet cock back into my pants and went up to Aaron. I put an ear against his chest, where I should’ve heard his heartbeat. There was no sound there at all. Aaron was gone.

I moved away, back to where I had dropped my backpack. Things hadn’t happened the way I thought they would, not at all. By this point, I figured I would be either packing up my rope, or hanging dead from it. Probably the latter.

Instead, I helped another guy hang. Arguably, I killed him. Sure, he put his own neck in the noose. But when Aaron was ambivalent, I kicked the log out from under him and made him hang to death. He turned out to be my victim, and it was beautiful. It freaked me out a little to realize that, but I really felt it was.

So I reached into the backpack. I pulled a little bit of my rope out, looked at it, and then put it back. Instead I got a small camera out of the bottom of the pack to snap some photos of Aaron. Just a few — front, back, side, and a closeup of his crotch, feet, and face. Then I put the camera away, and high-tailed it back to my car.

A couple of days later, I saw a newspaper story about the body of a young man found hanging from a tree in the park outside of town. They didn’t give his name, pending notification of kin, but did say that a suicide note had been found in his shirt which was lying at the base of the tree. I hadn’t known about the note, but now I felt as if I could relax a little. I clipped the article and put it with the prints of the photos I took. Then I jacked off to the article and photos, barely wondering why the victim in my fantasy was not me, but some other guy I strung up.