Every year in April one of my best friends, Alex, and I go to California for a week to get away from it all - my favorite part of the vacation is how we end the week at Coachella. It's the same every year, fly in the Sunday before the festival giving us 5 days to soak in the sun and hit the beaches. He usually crashes at my place the night before and drive a enterprise car to the airport in the morning, that way we don't need to pay for parking.
I'd been down on my luck so I was really looking forward to this trip. My cousin, an inventor of sorts, felt bad for me with the series of unfortunate events I had to deal with. So he dropped by and gave me a finished invention that he had been working on but hadn't gone public with it yet. He claims it can alter the reality in the user's immediate surroundings, he said it would be a game changer. Even if he was sort of the family nut, I didn't want to be rude so I accepted, promising I'd return it after my trip. Honestly, it didn't look like anything special, it had a screen and 1 button, it almost looked like an iPhone. After walking me through the manual, which was really just some stapled pieces of paper with hand written notes, he gave me a hug and left. I set the remote on the coffee table across from my desk and forgot about it.
Alex showed around 8 p.m. with his suitcase and big smile of excitement as our yearly adventure would begin tomorrow morning. I sat down on the couch while we chatted, he was talking about some funny episode of The Simpsons and said I had to watch it because of how funny it was.
While he fiddled with my computer trying to find the episode I got bored and picked up the remote my cousin had given me and started to toss it into the air. Sort of just throwing it into the air and catching it again. On my third toss and catch I accidentally hit the button and the screen flickered on. All there was, was a line that ran across the screen, I tried tapping the screen a few times and nothing. "Hah, so much for changing the game" I thought to myself.
Alex suddenly yelled "Found It!" which caused me to look up. As the episode started playing, he started to walk to grab a glass of water and asked if I wanted anything. I just told him to bring the Brita filter over so we wouldn't have to make another trip mid-episode. While he was in the kitchen I stopped tossing the remote, my thumb idley resting on the button. I asked what was taking so long and I saw the line move to my voice, at the top of the screen a message that said "Not a command" appeared. This peaked my interest, so to entertain myself I said "Make Alex want to give me a foot massage" A message saying "Command Accepted" flashed across the top and disappeared. Alex strolls in, sets the water on the desk and sees my feet propped up, "Hey Mike, want a foot massage? I'm sort of bored."
"What?" I say. He looked at me like I was stupid and said "Do. You. Want. A. Foot. Massage? Weird, I know but I don't mind."
I declined, got up and went into the bathroom with the remote... This couldn't be a coincidence, right? If it wasn't though... Not knowing if I could share this invention with anyone but still wanting to test it out I gave the remote another command: "No matter what I change or command, Alex will find nothing out of the ordinary when it comes to the things I changed or commanded."
I had to test it... I had to see what this thing was capable of... Alex was my best friend, so if the that second command didn't work, I can at least play off whatever commands I do next as me talking crazy.
"Alex will no longer think Alex is short for Alexander. He will now think it is short for Alexandra."
I walk back to the living room and sit down next to Alex on the couch, who is laughing at The Simpsons episode.
"Hey Alex, what was your full first name again?" I ask.
"Dude, you've been one of my best friends since elementary school... Stop asking stupid questions" - a fair response..
"Come on man, just tell me!" I say eagerly. "Dude... you and I both know it's short for Alexandra, can we get back to the episode now?"
I was shocked into silence. My head started racing with all of the possibilities. I wanted to push the envelope further.. what exactly did my cousin mean by "alter reality"?... "Change all of Alex's clothes, including the clothes he is currently wearing to female clothes, but make him think the clothes he specifically owns is a style of menswear" In an instant, Alex was wearing tight jeans and a black female shirt. I could also see red lace panties peeking above his jeans and a faint outline of a bra underneath his shirt.
"Alex, what are you wearing?"
"The same clothes I always wear."
"Lace panties and a bra? Fitted jeans and a female shirt?"
"So what? Just because I prefer a different style of menswear than you doesn't mean you need to judge."
No. Fucking. Way. I wanted to keep pushing the envelope and see how far I could take this. "Search my subconscious and change Alex's physicality to that of a female I desire, but make him think his body is still a normal male body."
As soon as the "Command Accepted" message disappeared he changed into a curvaceous female that filled out the female clothes I gave him earlier. With everything down to his vocal chords changed to that of a female I desired, his laugh at the ending of the episode was feminine and cute. As the episode finished, he got up off the couch and took off his jeans and began to take off his shirt.
"Whoa dude, what are you doing?!"
"Getting ready for bed. We have an early morning and its not like you haven't seen me walk around and sleep in my underwear before."
*Derp.. I forgot, nothing out of the ordinary and he still thinks hes male.
As he got undressed I couldn't help but stare... I started to get rock hard. Panicing, I looked for something to throw over my lap, but there was nothing. I urgently pressed the button on the remote and said "Alex won't find me having an erection asr weird, he will think they are random hard-ons."
"Another hard on? Better go take care of that man."
The thought of the fact that we were going to be sharing a bed tonight and for the entirety of the vacation didn't help my "random erections" either.
(To be continued...)
After I checked my pocket to make sure I had brought the remote I locked the front door and started down the driveway where I could see Alex already sitting in the passenger seat of the car. I hopped behind the steering wheel and off we went. He connected his phone to the car Bluetooth and started playing "Paris" by the Chainsmokers, an artist that would be playing at Coachella this year. He started belting the song and I couldn't help but laugh a little to myself - if he still had his male body and voice I would have just called him stupid and laughed it off. However, in this female body and feminine voice, it was absurdly cute and dorky. It seemed fun and playful, especially when he would close her eyes, dramatically bring her hands to her chest and sing louder than the music.
