One of Norman Ramirez’s biggest flaws was his inability to say ‘no’ to his friends. “Can you lend me your pencil? I forgot mine”, his elementary school friends would ask him, and he’d be happy to comply, even if he didn’t have a spare. “Can you do my homework for me? It’s too hard...”, his high school friends would ask him, and he’d help even if he had no time to study for his own test. “Wanna try this suspicious piece of candy?”, his drug-addict friend from university would ask him, and Norman would swallow it without a doubt even when it turned out to be strawberry-flavored.
Norman’s life went downhill when his former classmate Max told him he had been fired from his job and he needed somewhere to stay for a week or two while he went job hunting. Norman, as generous as ever, accepted Max’s request to move in as a roommate. However, over a year after that, Norman started to suspect that Max didn’t seem to be in a hurry to find a job and that his true intention had always been to live off from Norman like a parasite for as long as possible.
One day, when he returned home after going to the store for various groceries and other errands Max had ordered him to go through, Norman gathered all of his courage and was about to tell Max to find a fucking job once and for all when he realized Max had fallen asleep on the couch with the TV still on.
Norman sighed and turned off the TV. He looked at Max Loewe, who was snoring loudly. When he sleeps like that not even a earthquake could wake him up, Norman knew that from experience. The slob life had taken a toll on Max’s weight. He looked so out of shape the black tattoos on his arms were starting to look stretched out. He was wearing just boxers and a white wife beater that did nothing to conceal his bellybutton.
A big foul-smelling mass of worthless shit sleeping like a baby. Yeah, that was how Max looked like to him right now. At least the slob wouldn’t complain for a while, so Norman took this chance to do some housekeeping.
Norman had bought something useful at the convenience store, a fluorescent lamp that electrocuted any unfortunate bugs that were dumb enough to get near it. It was nearly summer, so Max was always complaining about flies and mosquitoes getting inside the apartment. Norman set up the lamp near the window, and then went back to the bag of groceries. It’d be night soon, and Max would be hungry, so maybe he should start making dinner now.
But Norman was feeling so powerless. Why the hell did he have to make dinner for that buffon? Why couldn’t he just boot him out from the house? Why couldn’t he just say ‘no’ to every annoying request?
Maybe it was time to reconsider how Norman lived his life. He had a job and his own house, but he couldn’t even date anyone because then Max would get angry whenever someone else came over! It was enough, it was time to start living for himself for once...
*BUZZZZTTTT!*
“Whoa!” Norman was startled by a sudden sound. Max, however, kept on snoring. The sound had came from the lamp Norman had just set up.
*BUZZZT!* *BZZZZZZTTTT!!!!!!*
The sound was too loud and continuous to have been caused by a single small bug touching the lamp. Maybe the lamp was defective...?
When Norman came over to check the lamp, his mouth fell open. There was someone... or something... right beside it! It was the size of a child, but for some reason it looked blurry and fuzzy. It was like the static of a CRT television, but floating in mid-air!
“What the fuck is that?!” Norman yelled. Max kept snoring.
“Pl.....Ease!” *BZZZZT!*
“Uh...What... It talked?!”
*BZZZT* “Turn...this thing off!” *BZZZT*
Norman ran over to the power plug and pulled it off.
The buzzing ceased, but the living static was still there. The entire room was filled with smoke. Max kept snoring.
“Awww crap! Damn it all!” Said the strange voice. It was high-pitched and sounded really odd for a child-sized person. “Oh... It stopped! Thank the Gigastar for that!” Suddenly the static lifted and Norman saw something he never expected to see in all of his life.
It was a small grey-skinned creature. For all purposes it looked like an alien to Norman. It got all the clichés checked from the list: pale skin, bald head with two big oval-shaped black pupils for eyes and no visible ears or nose, long arms with extremely prehensile fingers, and a very indecent lack of clothing.
“Are you... An alien?” Norman asked. “How do you know my language? Why are you here? What’s a Gigastar, is it in space or is it just a celebrity like the superstars from TV?”
The creature looked at Norman. It looked at the human from head to toe, confused. Then the creature looked down at itself. Norman was awed at the size of the creature’s grey floppy penis. The creature shrieked in surprise and then hastily covered his groin. “Damned space bullocks! My invisibility suit got burned down to ashes!”
“Umm... Are you hurt?” Norman’s overly generous personality compelled him to take care of the intruder’s wellbeing above all. Max kept snoring.
“No external injuries to account for.” The alien said. “Except for my tarnished pride. The Earthling’s traps are getting more and more sophisticated.” The alien looked at the bug lamp worth 19.95$ with disgust. “How can a light so beautiful be so deadly? That’s life for you. A big pile of space worm’s droppings.” The alien stuck out his bright pink tongue at the evil Earthling trap.
The alien’s eyes posed themselves on Norman. “Thanks for deactivating that trap. I owe you my life.” The alien bowed his head, his hands still covering his otherworldly privates.
Norman wondered if he should tell the alien that he’s the one who set up that ‘trap’ in the first place. He decided against it.
“I really want to make it up to you, I swear to the Gigastar... But first I should make myself presentable.” The alien searched through the ashes and salvaged a small square-shaped device.
“What’s that?” Norman asked with curiosity.
“I’ll tell you. But first, tell me, is there any piece of... I don’t know the exact Earthling word... Worthless ‘shit’ around here?”
Norman immediately thought of Max. But declaring that aloud wouldn’t be very polite to his slobby roommate.
“Oh, what’s this?” The alien found a slice of leftover pizza below the couch. It was full of hungry ants.
“Just trash. Yeesh, Max sure is careless with his food.”
“Oh, ‘trash’ is like worthless shit, right? Then you wouldn’t mind if I do this.” The alien used his long fingers to operate the rectangular device.
The alien’s device looked simple enough, just a dial with 60 positions. Norman thought it resembled a kitchen timer at first, but when the alien adjusted the dial a holographic bar was projected on top of it.
The alien dialed quickly and skillfully, and alien characters began appearing one by one inside the holographic bar. That’s when Norman realized it was actually a text box, and the dial was acting as a keyboard.
But the device wasn’t just for light shows. Every time the alien dialed a new letter the pizza on the carpet pulsated like it was a beating heart and when the alien had finished dialing the last letter the dirty slice of pizza had transmuted into... Dirty white human briefs?
“What the heck is this...?” Norman gasped.
“They are known as ‘tighty whities’ in some parts of the world. Exotic, aren’t they?” The alien said with a wide smile.
“That’s not what I...”
But the alien wasn’t listening. He took the former pizza and put it on. The tight underwear did a pretty bad job at not showing the outline of the alien’s cock. “Woah, it’s full of tiny Earthlings inside! They itch! Ow, my peepee!” The alien comically danced until he had shaken off the last of the remaining ants.
The alien looked at Norman and grinned with pride. “It’s the space gorilla’s armpits, isn’t it?”
“...The what?”
“It’s an idiom. It means it’s the best of the best. You should study more about the Earthling’s language sometime. Of course, for me, Alpha With A Floppy P, studying alien cultures is easy-peasy.”
“So your name is Alpha... And what’s that about a floppy P? Your title?” Norman wondered.
“It means the ‘P’ in Al-p-ha is pronounced with your tongue flapping out. You sure can be dense, Mr. Earthling.”
“The name’s Norman.”
“I know, my name’s very normal.”
After Norman cleared up that he was actually talking about his own name, the alien smiled at him.
“You know, in my home planet, when you save someone’s life is customary for that someone to become your sex slave for the rest of their existence...”
Norman didn’t know how to react to that.
“...But! Considering we’re in YOUR home planet, I’ll give you something even more valuable than sexual satisfaction for life! You should be grateful!”
Norman still couldn’t assess the reality of the situation he was in. Everything up to that point had felt like a weird fever dream. “And what’s that?”
“I’ll...” Alpha began to say dramatically. “... let... you...”
“...SPIN THE DIAL!” The alien cried out euphoric. Max kept snoring.
Norman was silent. “...Uh?”
“C’mon, don’t try to deny it. Everybody in the universe has dreamed about dialing this thing. There’s lots of cheap imitations all over the multiverse but I swear to the Gigastar that this one’s the real deal. The possibilities are endless. You can transmute anything into anything. Yourself. Your love interest. Your house... Giant space bullocks, you could make your wildest fantasies come true. You just have to dial what you want and it’s yours!”
That certainly did sound too good to be true to Norman.
“Look, I have no idea if you’re telling the truth... It actually kind of sounds scary...” So much power... For someone like Norman who couldn’t hurt a fly? That didn’t sound fair to him.
“Oh, it’s very simple to use. Its software automatically translates itself to whatever language you understand just by holding it. It’s idiot-proof!”
“That’s not the problem...”
The alien clad in Earthling underwear held the dialer up and looked around the room. “Oh, I can use that plant for another example...”
“There’s no need, really...”
“What would happen if this completely unaware, immobile plant would turn into...I dunno... Oh yes, a live breathing gorilla... Those dumb animals resemble your kind, don’t they?”
“Wait!”
Alpha started dialing. But as he dialed the alien symbols the alien wasn’t pointing the device at the small flowerpot, he was pointing it at Max.
“G - o -...”
Max’s muscles swelled. Brown hairs started sprouting all over his arms and legs. His wife beater was stretching... Stretching... Until... Rip! Max’s hard pectorals struck straight out! Norman couldn’t believe it. The worthless piece of shit was becoming even bigger!
“That’s not a plant! That’s my human roommate Max!”
“Space seahorse’s butthairs! You’re for real?! But it has been so silent and still until now?!” Alpha said, genuinely surprised. But his long and thin grey fingers kept dialing out of pure instinct. “...- r - i -... ”
Max’s ugly face became even uglier, his brow and jawline becoming more primal. His whole body was hairy all over except for his hands, feet, chest, face and buttocks. Speaking of buttocks, these had just ripped his boxers apart, revealing Max’s still human genitals.
“Why are you still dialing?!” Norman screamed, both at the transformation and at the revelation of his roommate’s cock.
“I can still stop it!” Claimed Alpha. “... - l - l- a.” “Whoops, sorry! My fingers have a life of their own sometimes!”
Max’s cock got darker and smellier with each letter dialed. And also smaller, that’s the thing about apes’ dicks.
Max the big gorilla sprawled on Norman’s couch stretched his now muscular arms out, yawned loudly and... he kept snoring.
“See? The dialer works.” Alpha said.
“You kidding? If Max wasn’t such a lazy sleepyhead he’d be freaking out right now...!”
“But the dialer works.” Alpha said once again.
It was surreal. A big-ass gorilla sleeping on his couch... And that big-ass gorilla was Max.
Norman got closer to the naked primate. He noticed that Max’s tattoos on his arms were still there, imprinted on top of the simian fur. “Is he... Still himself?”
“Of course.” Said Alpha. “The dialer really does transmute anything into anything... But... As you can tell, some stuff just can’t be changed.”
Max’s face was brutish, but still resembled his old self if you looked at him close enough.
“Identity... Certain personality and physical traits... In other words, the ‘soul’ can’t be changed, if you’re into that kinda spiritual stuff.”
“But... The tattoos?”
“It’s like I just told you, this gorilla guy must have really identified himself with these tattoos or something.”
“Is that the same reason why your underwear is dirty and attracts all sorts of hungry insects?”
“You could say so.”
Norman and Alpha sat down in nearby chairs while keeping an eye on Max the gorilla. Norman had a lot to think about.
Alpha handed Norman the powerful dialer. “Remember, you gained the right to spin the dial... Once.” Alpha’s usually goofy stare was now serious.
“Of course, I screwed things up a bit up by turning your roommate into a big Earthling gorilla, but I can undo that right now, free of charge.”
“Actually... There isn’t much of a hurry...” Norman stated. “Let him finish his nap for the moment, ok?”
“Sure thing, pal. Let sleeping apes lie.”
“Mmm... Alpha?”
“Yes?”
“I’ve already decided what I want to change.”
“Great!” Alpha’s eyes widened. “I’m so happy! C’mon, point it at what you want to change and dial the word!”
“Hehe, sure thing...” Norman held the dialer up and turned it on. This time, the holographic symbols used that characters that Norman could understand. But not Alpha.
This meant that Alpha himself wouldn’t know what Norman was writing on the text box until the transmutation had finished...
...That certainly gave Norman an advantage.
There were multiple possibilities for Norman to follow...
He could change himself... He could turn himself into anything. It was the perfect opportunity to change his life for the better... He had been a goodie two-shoes all his life. It was time for his just reward!
He could use it to change Max further to give him the scare of his life. That lazy bastard needed a punishment!
Wait, no, that wasn’t like him. He should ask Alpha to turn Max back into a human. Then all of them could think calmly about what to do with the dialer...
...But was Alpha trustworthy, anyway? What was he doing on Earth, exactly? And most importantly... Why was he so adamant with Norman using the dialer? Could it be that the little alien is actually not what he claims to be? Should Norman just change the alien into something defenseless and keep the dialer for himself...?
“So, what are you waiting for?” Alpha said smiling. “Choose your own change!”