The first semester with my new housemates Tim and Ed had been a blast. I had finally found a couple of friends who shared my nerdy interests. Tim was a student of archaeology, while Ed and myself were both fellow coursemates on the Computer Science degree. The three of us would stay up late, geeking out on old sci- fi B movies, laughing at the terrible special effects, and then having great conversations about the philosophy of it all.

I’d had a hard time finding friends at college until then. The first year had been a disaster when I had been rammed into accommodation with a bunch of jerky sports jocks, so it was a huge relief to finally forge a strong bond with some like-minded housemates.

However, as it turned out, things were about to change. One day, I came home to find Tim sat at the kitchen table, obsessively rubbing what looked like a gold coin between his fingers.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A roman coin, dedicated to Apollo,” replied Tim. He placed it in his palm and held it out for me to see. “It’s unique, no-one has ever found another one like it.”

“Is it gold?” I asked in disbelief. “That must be worth a fortune!”

Tim began to obsessively rub the coin between his fingers again. “You can’t tell anyone,” he said. “I was going through some old rarely viewed books about ancient coins at the college library yesterday, and this coin just dropped out, along with a handwritten letter.”

“A letter?” I asked. “What did it say?”

“It said, that the coin has special magical properties,” said Tim with a straight face. “If someone holds it for long enough, Apollo will bestow that person with his athletic skills and physical beauty.”

“Oh come on!” I laughed out loud. “Someone is playing a prank on you!”

“I thought so too at first, but then, when I started to hold it, there was something...something that feels strange,” he said with an odd glaze in his eyes.

“Let me hold it,” I said holding out my hand.

“No!” shouted Tim angrily, pulling his own hand and the coin away from my reach. “It’s mine, I found it!”

“OK...Gollum!” I laughed, standing up from the table.

I shrugged my shoulders and then went and started watching some TV with Ed. I felt a bit sorry for Tim really. He had been pretty obsessed about finding a girlfriend all semester, and had absolutely no success so far. Clearly this new fantasy was some kind of last ditch effort by his unconscious mind to hypnotise himself into plucking up the courage to ask some poor girl out.

Personally, I wasn’t too bothered about finding a girlfriend myself. Girls weren’t really my thing anyway to be honest, but that wasn’t something I talked about with Tim or Ed, or anyone.

As it was the end of the semester, I decided to go home and see my family over the holidays. Ed and Tim decided to stay at the house as their families lived locally to the college. It was nice to see my parents again for a couple of weeks, but I couldn’t wait to get back to the student house and start nerding out with Tim and Ed again.

However, on my return, I found things had taken a sudden and unexpected change. Ed was sitting on the couch, looking glum, and Tim was nowhere to be seen.

“Where’s Tim?” I asked.

“He’s moved out,” said Ed with his arms folded. “Over the holidays, he suddenly became this total jerk, and told me I was a boring geek, and then said he was moving in with some new sporty jock mates he’s found.”

“Oh, it must be this obsession he has with finding a girlfriend,” I sighed. “He’s trying to make himself look cool to attract the girls.”

“Seemed like more than that,” said Ed with a frown. “It was like he really had become a different person, he even looked different.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him,” I said. “I’m sorry that he said those things to you, that was mean.”

I suddenly noticed a strange golden glint between Ed’s fingers.

“Wait,” I said, “is that the Apollo coin you’re holding?

“This thing?” asked Ed, holding up the coin. “Yeah, it was the only thing Tim left in his room when he moved all of his stuff out. It’s kind of...weird. I can’t stop rubbing it.”

I suddenly felt a strange unease, but quickly decided to shrug off that feeling, and go and unpack.

Tim was not answering any of my messages, but a few days later when term started, I managed to track him down on campus. Reception told me that he had changed his course to Sports Science, and I finally found him and a few of his fellow sporty students messing around in an empty computer lab. However, I was not prepared for my total shock when I saw him.

“Oh look, it’s one of the nerds I used to live with!” laughed Tim when he saw me. Then he flexed his unexpectedly large biceps at me, and smiled with confident smugness. “What do you think of my new muscles, nerd?”

I couldn’t hide my astonishment. This was no longer the slightly overweight, unfashionable, and bookish Tim that I knew and loved. Instead, he had become slim, and athletic, with powerful new muscles barely hidden beneath his tight-fitting sports top and jeans. Meanwhile, his confident and cocky attitude filled the room, and some of his new sporty mates laughed along with him. He had clearly already become the alpha male of their group. Tim looked me up and down, in a weirdly sordid way, and then started to run his finger up the crotch join of his tight ripped jeans.

I suddenly felt massively uncomfortable, and I started to shake. It was just like the first year, all over again. Before I knew it, I was running out of the room. I could hear Tim and his new friends laughing and jeering after me all the way down the corridor.

That night, I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling. I was still in a state of shock. How could Tim have changed so much, so quickly? Sure, people change and develop all of the time, especially during college years, but this was different. Nobody suddenly becomes a muscular alpha male in the space of a couple of weeks. Surely, it couldn’t be to do with that stupid coin...could it?

The other problem was, ever since I had seen Tim confidently flexing those huge biceps at me, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. God he had become so hot! That beautiful masculine face; those tight fitting fashionable clothes; that incredible athletic and muscular torso; those thick powerful legs; and that confident cocky persona. Then there had been that strange sordid way that he had looked me up and down before touching his crotch. Was he just taunting me, or was he interested? As I thought about him more and more, I found myself reaching into my shorts, and started to jerk myself off. I hated myself for it at the same time, but Tim was so hot, so fucking hot now, I couldn’t help myself. I let out a loud moan as I ejaculated into my shorts, and then the sexual elation was quickly replaced with overwhelming guilt and sadness. I hoped Ed hadn’t heard me.