Extra Change

Once upon a time, Mountain Dew did a commercial called "Change", and I was struck by how closely it resembles the beginning of many of the stories here. I'd link to it, but, well, Literotica no likey. Anyway, what follows is my take. I'm curious what directions others would pursue; anyone else care to write about "what happens next"?

*

Chris stopped next to the vending machine as Zack fed in some money. "Too bad she dumped you."

"She didn't dump me," Zack replied defensively, punching the Mountain Dew button. "We're just... taking a break." There was an odd buzzing sound as the button lit and the bottle fell, not really noticed by either man.

"Right. That's good." Chris said sarcastically as Zack took a swig from the bottle. He was always teasing, something he demonstrated as they walked back to Zack's car.

"I can't believe you lock this thing, man." In truth, Chris had a point. The vehicle was old, worn, and only marginally 'running'. The only reliable part was, ironically, the alarm.

The chirp of Zack's remote rang out. Both men stopped short as a rumbling noise began. Suddenly the car seemed to explode and rearrange itself. It was too quick to follow - a fraction of a second - but now a shining, detailed sports car lay before them, a giant spoiler mounted on the back.

"Whoa..." they both exhaled, exchanging swift, stunned glances. Another chirp, and a second transformation; a muscle car settled onto its shocks.

In disbelief, Zack hit the button again. Chirp, rumble; a giant monster truck. Chirp, rumble; a tiny Shriner parade car, complete with Shriner, waving at them.

Chris looked dubiously at Zack, whose face was blank with shock; he was waving back timidly. Zack snapped himself out of it and used the remote. Chirp.

A gold-toned, pimped-out pickup, stereo bumping. Even the mag wheels were gold-tinted.

"Sweet! Let's roll!" Chris called out, stepping forward, high on the absurdity of the situation.

There was an odd smile on Zack's face. "Wait!", he said.

"What?" Chris asked, not quite understanding as Zack pointed the remote his way and turned his head like a gunslinger pulling off a trick shot.

Chirp. Chris frowned, puzzled, as brown hair fell just past his shoulders. He glanced up to see a strangled look on his friend's face. Convulsively Zack squeezed the button again.

Chirp. Chris's horror and confusion grew in direct proportion to the breasts that pushed his shirt out. Frightened, he locked eyes with Zack. "Not cool!" he half exclaimed, half pleaded.

Chirp. It took less than a second. His clothes and body flowed like water, the former becoming feminine and the latter becoming female. Only the styrofoam cup remained unchanged.

The new girl gasped as the change completed, then smiled Zack's way.

"How about a Dew?" she asked flirtatiously. Zack mutely chirped the remote at her drink. It wriggled in her hand to become a twin of the one he held.

"Thanks." She watched as Zack, dumbfounded, kissed the remote and mumbled his own gratitude.

She laughed, feeling flattered. "Now let's roll?" she grinned.

Zack moved toward the front of the truck. "Aren't you going to open the door for a lady?" she teasingly asked. He stopped, almost stumbling, then came back and gingerly opened the passenger door, holding it for her. Crissy thought the mixture of confusion, caution, and hope on his face was just about the most adorable thing she'd ever seen.

She brushed past him, running her hand down his arm, and squeezed his hand as she slid into the seat. She made sure her long legs were stretched out, and held herself so her chest was subtly but prominently displayed.

This was rewarded with a wondering glance as Zack took the sight in. Pride and satisfaction filled her; her smile widened. "Come on, loverboy. Don't you want to see what this baby can do?" she asked, leaving open exactly what she was referring to.

Zack hurried around to the driver's side and hopped in, sparing another disbelieving glance toward her. The inside of the truck was lavishly appointed, and the boom of the stereo made the seats vibrate a little, even though it was clearly nowhere near the highest volume.

"Jesus," Zack breathed, surveying the dashboard. GPS navigation, DVD player, satellite radio, OnStar. Neon-blue running lights. Gold accents on everything; even gold thread in the leather upholstery.

Crissy giggled, watching his awed exploration. His head jerked in her direction at the sound, and though he was clearly even more awed at her, he almost visibly decided to postpone consideration of what she represented.

{That's okay, baby,} she thought. {Take your time. When you're ready, I'll be ready.} She gazed at him lovingly, and not a little lustfully.

Something about the seatback attracted his attention. He fumbled for a moment, then found the catch. A panel opened between them.

"A refrigerator?" Zack was incredulous. The chilled compartment was stocked with (what else?) Mountain Dew.

Crissy was laughing again. "It's so cute! You were just like this when you won it!"

"When I 'won it'? Wha... what do you mean?"

"Here." She rummaged in the glove compartment for a moment. "Look." The registration said 'Zachariah Joseph Lee'.

"Oh."

"You won it in a Pepsi contest about a month ago. You were so happy then, too." Crissy liked it when Zack was happy. "Did you notice how nobody even looked at us while you were changing the car?" Zack nodded slowly. Nobody was paying any special attention as they idled in the parking lot. "Memories were changed, too. Everything's, you know, consistent."

After a few moments, Zack looked her way one more time, a bit nervously. "Um, do you... I mean, are you... er, who..."

She laughed brightly. "Relax. I know what happened to me, and it's all okay."

"Are you sure? I mean..." he trailed to a halt.

"I've never been so happy. I get to start all over with you! I remember Christopher Michael Parker, but I'm not him. I'm Christina Michelle Parker, but everyone calls me Crissy, including you."

"You don't... uh, mind, uh..."

"Why should I? I'm me, Crissy. I'm as real as you are, and I like who I am. And I am desperately in love with you," she said earnestly. "What, do you mind?"

"Uh, no, not at all. It's just, um, a lot to take in."

"I sure hope so, stud!" Crissy teased. Zack looked puzzled for a second, then did a double-take at her double-entendre. He shook his head as if to clear it.

She continued, "But like I said, I remember Chris, too. I think that's so I can help you, be your guide to what's changed." She felt an odd certainty about that.

"Why is this happening? Why me?"

"I don't know. But it couldn't have happened to a greater guy." She positively beamed at him. "God, I love you."

Zack shifted uncomfortably. "You 'remember' Chris?"

"It's like... like I watched a DVD of his life, with a commentary. I know what he did and felt, but it didn't happen to me. I'm not him." Again Zack looked nonplussed.

"This is for the best, it's so right. You'll see!" She paused. "Look, let's go for a ride. You always said you loved the way this sucker handled."

She watched Zack consider that for a moment. Then he put the truck in gear, and pulled out onto the road. After a few moments, he asked, "So, you're my girlfriend?"

"No, just your housemate. We've been friends since college, like you were with Chris, and we shared apartments back then, too. But we were just friends. You had all the same girlfriends at the same times; not so much has changed. Even Karen."

"And they all were okay with me living with you?" Zack asked doubtfully. He had to tap on the brakes; it was Sunday but the noon traffic was still thick.

"Sure, they accepted I wasn't any competition when they met my girlfriends."

"Wait, you're a lesbian?" he cried out. {No, I was wrong,} Crissy thought. {That disappointment on his face - that's the most adorable thing I've ever seen. And the most gratifying.} She wanted him to want her.

"I always thought so, but as it turns out, I'm bi. I just never could admit to myself how attracted I was to you, until a few months ago. Just before you started dating Karen. It's been awful; I've been so jealous of her." She remembered nights crying into her pillow. "Now that she broke up with you, that idiot, I've been steeling myself up all day to tell you. It feels so good to stop hiding it!"

"But... you weren't... none of that really happened!"

"Maybe not to you, but it sure did to me." Zack frowned, but she kept going. "Even if you were right, you're the only one in the world that thinks so," she replied firmly. "Nobody but me and you even remember anything else, and I don't want it any other way."

Zack changed the subject. "I wish this damn traffic would clear."

"Why not do something about it?" Crissy suggested, smirking.

He stopped short. "Why not?" He reached out the window and pointed ahead. Chirp. Half the cars were whisked away, and the light in the distance flipped from red to green. Nobody noticed.

For a while, they drove aimlessly, neither talking, just listening to the radio. Crissy danced a little in the seat, partly enjoying the music but also to draw attention to her body. {Zack, I know you need time to adjust to this, but maybe I can speed it up a little,} she thought wickedly.

She wanted to think, too. It wasn't that she needed to adjust; from the moment Zack had used the remote on her, she'd felt utterly certain of so many things. But the situation did call for reflection.

Crissy had never really been attracted to a man before Zack. Oh, she'd been horny enough, but in high school the boys were all stupid jocks, or dweebs, or whatever, and hopelessly immature. Her fantasies and experiences had always revolved around girls.

It had been reassuring for her straitlaced, traditional parents that she had never seemed to get in trouble with boys. When Crissy had introduced them to her date for the senior prom, they'd been horrified to find out why.

She could see now that her reaction to that had been to cement her self-image as a capital-L Lesbian, and a sexually adventurous one. A twinkle came to her eyes as she recalled the one time her mother had visited the apartment she shared with Zack; the wide-eyed stare at the toys on display in Crissy's bedroom had given her great satisfaction.

Looking at the 'Chris' memories helped. His family had made a similar mistake; he'd rebelled against his mother and father and their ironclad insistence that he go into medicine by becoming a slacker. Despite his intelligence, he'd graduated with mediocre grades and had been working for a pool-service company. (In her history, her old-fashioned parents hadn't put that kind of career pressure on a girl.)

Chris hadn't been happy about how his life was turning out, but was too proud to admit anything of the kind to anyone, especially his estranged parents. Crissy could see, looking at it from the 'outside', that his sarcasm and teasing had been a defense mechanism.

Crissy's rebellion, on the other hand, had cost her Zack. She'd felt a connection to him when they had first met in college, but she had sublimated that to friendship, not willing then to confront the truth, too caught up with her anger at her family. He had accepted her on those terms, and they had become very close - as friends.

Eight months ago, she had a dream. She was being ravished by a masked woman with a strap-on, and she was thoroughly enjoying it. Suddenly she realized it wasn't a girl, it was Zack, and she awoke in a vocal orgasm. The strange mood of the dream had stuck with her for days afterward. She'd avoided both Zack and her then-current girlfriend, confused and upset. Maureen had moved on before too long.

Eventually she'd admitted to herself that she was looking at Zack differently. Or rather, she was now conscious of what she felt when she looked at him. But she feared his response if she told him - did he even really see her as a girl anymore? Or just a buddy who happened to have long hair and good advice about women?

After a month, she'd been unable to hold it in any longer. She'd had a nice meal ready for when he got home from work, planning to pour out her heart over dinner. (She'd discovered that she had absorbed some traditional ideas about male-female relationships from her parents after all.) But he hadn't come home, and she ate alone. The next morning he'd arrived with a hangover, Karen in tow...

Pretending she was happy for them had curdled her soul.

All winter Crissy's sorrow had grown. She put on a brave front, but Karen was wrong for him, she knew it. Not that she could be at all objective, but Karen didn't seem to respect Zack all that much, and she was awfully controlling; Crissy felt Zack's sweet nature was being taken advantage of.

She didn't sabotage their relationship. Partly because she didn't want to hurt Zack, but mostly because of her anxieties about how he would respond to her overtures. She still wished for them to break up and vowed not to miss her chance if that happened. Hope and dread had mixed in the spring, when she'd seen signs of Karen growing increasingly distant.

And then, Saturday night. She'd come home from a movie (seen alone; she hadn't had any interest in a girlfriend, resorting to brief, meaningless sexual encounters when the pressure got too strong) and been surprised to find Zack home, in a blue funk. Tentative questions set her heart pounding - Karen had told him she 'needed some space'.

Then, this morning. She remembered picking out her outfit so carefully. Cute; sexy but not slutty, nice but not dressy. Casually proposing a trip out for an early lunch.

Over the meal, Crissy had started to tell Zack about her feelings, but her worst fears had been confirmed. He had shut her down. He was 'still hoping to get back with Karen'. It was 'too weird', she was 'like a sister'. He'd stopped thinking of her 'that way'.

She had been fighting back tears as they stopped for gas, and Zack went to get a Dew. Despairingly wishing she'd pursued him when they'd first met. Then, the car had gone through its changes. And then he'd pointed the remote at her...

'Chris' remembered it differently, of course, up until the change. They'd gone out to lunch, but he certainly hadn't confessed his nonexistent love for Zack. She could remember, if not really relate to, his fear as his hair got long, as breasts sprouted from his chest.

From her point of view, when Zack had turned the remote on her, there had been no confusion, not even a real sense of transition. Just a rapid flood of odd memories and certainties in her mind. She had gasped at the realization that her wish had, in a way, come true. In front of her was a Zack that didn't remember her; she really could start over... and this Zack would find her attractive!

{I'll make you love me this time, Zack! I'll make you happy, I can be everything you ever wanted in a girl, you'll see!}

Suddenly another idea struck her. She dug her phone out of her purse, and turned to Zack. "Hey gorgeous, how about giving me an upgrade?"

He blinked, and chirped the remote; the cheap phone ballooned, sprouting a keypad. She felt her memories shift; a girlfriend who'd gotten a replacement unit, then the old one started working again; she'd given it to Crissy... "Thanks," she said, blowing him a kiss. In a few moments she was on the web.

"Okay, turn in here," she said presently.

"What? Why?" he asked, but turned into another convenience store parking lot.

"It's a surprise!" she teased as he parked. "Wait here, I'll be back in a sec." She put the phone down; then, unable to help herself, leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before slipping out of the truck.

As she walked into the store, she put an extra waggle in her hips. Knowing he was staring after her was an incredible turn on.

She returned a few minutes later, a small slip of paper in her hand. Zack was sitting in the truck, surfing the web with her phone. He looked up as she climbed in.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?"

Wordlessly, she held out her hand; Zack, bewildered, passed her the phone again. She quickly went back to the page she'd been on, then showed it to him, handing him the slip of paper.

"The $72 million Mega Millions jackpot was claimed yesterday by a Virginia woman..."

Zack looked at the ticket she'd bought. "Wait," he said, "These are the..." He trailed off. She plucked the phone out of his hand.

"...winning numbers, that's right. All you need to do is change the date." She smiled teasingly. "Aren't you glad you don't prefer dumb blondes?"

Zack silently brought up the remote. Crissy looked at the screen of the phone as the chirp sounded. The letters of the web page scuttled about, rearranging themselves. She grinned and showed him the phone.

"Friday's $181 million Mega Millions jackpot is still unclaimed, but lottery officials confirmed the winning ticket was purchased in a San Francisco-area convenience store on Thursday..."

Zack was driving on autopilot, like a zombie, every so often sipping his Dew. He'd accepted her gentle suggestion that they head towards home. Crissy was talking animatedly, telling him about the world she remembered, her feelings for him.

They pulled up in front of the apartment building where they lived; after a moment, Zack used the remote. A few cars seemed to disassemble and put themselves together in distant spaces. He parked directly in front of their door. Crissy laughed and applauded.

Zack took a last big swig of his Dew and finished it off. He squared his shoulders and turned to her, speaking slowly. "Look... Crissy. I gather how you feel, but I'm not sure... I mean, I don't think you would..."

{Oh, no!} "Don't worry, Zack, it's okay!" she said as reassuringly as she could.

"No, wait, I can't... I mean, look, you're, like, seriously hot." Even as scared as she suddenly was, Crissy still felt a thrill to hear Zack say that. "But you're not really... I mean, you just think you're..."

"I don't think, I know. I'm a real person. Besides, what did you think you were doing when you used the remote on Chris?"

"I... don't know. I mostly figured I was dreaming or something. I was just kinda mad 'cause he... because you were ragging on me about Karen. But I didn't expect this. And now, I guess... I mean, I wouldn't want someone changing me into a girl, and..."

"It didn't change me, I'm Crissy! I don't know what happened to Chris, but..."

"I'm sorry. Look, you'll thank me for this in a second..." He pointed the remote at her. She closed her eyes in terror and despair... chirp.

She heard a thunk. She trembled. After a few seconds she opened her eyes and beheld a very confused-looking Zack, remote still pointed her way. He pressed the button again. Chirp.

Another thunk as the door locks opened and the engine started up. She remained unchanged.

Zack pointed the remote at their apartment building. Chirp. The engine died and the locks thunked down again. The building stood still, the way buildings usually do, even in San Francisco.

"It's, uh, not working anymore," he said quietly. Crissy felt a huge surge of relief. Her eyes darted to his other hand.

"The Dew! It was the drink that did it!" she cried out in realization. "It all started when you got that bottle, and now you just polished it off!"