Lisa

“Sam? Um...Sam, Blake? I ...um...have your phone.”

The voice was familiar, but not immediately recognisable. Sam had to wrack his brains for the source of it and after about a minute he realised it belonged to Lisa the mail girl from work.

Thank God, not Vicky. Relief washed through him; Lisa was about as threatening as an kicked puppy. Usually too timid and docile to even meet someone’s eye, the girl had never said a bad word about anyone, which was a feat considering how toxic their workplace was.

“Lisa?” His voice creaked a little as the anxiety left him. “Thanks for that,” he laughed uneasily, “I was tearing the place apart looking for it...”

There was a shaky laugh. “Ha...yeah, it was on the ground near my cubicle. I guess it fell out of your pocket or something…” there was a pause, “so, um, I’ll just …give it to you tomorrow at work?”

Shit. Sam’s mind buzzed around for an excuse to not have to go back to that den of madness.

“Actually I’m not going to be in tomorrow,” he said, “I’ve got something coming up, some personal stuff that’ll keep me away for the rest of the week, y’know?” He shifted around uneasily, “so, maybe we could meet up somewhere later today?”

There was a long pause.

“…ok.” Another pause. “Uh, maybe…well, I usually like to go to the duck pond in the park after I get off work. Do you maybe want to meet up there?” He didn’t get a chance to respond before she hastily added, “Or not. We can meet somewhere else if you’d prefer.”

“The park will be fine,” he reassured, “say about…5:30?”

“S-sure!”

“Cool,” he replied, “it’s a date, I’ll see you there!”

There was sputtering on the other end of the line but Sam had already hung up before a response could be formed.

He was fairly pleased with himself. This might work out great; he could go to the park, make small talk with Lisa, get his phone and from there it would be matter of simply following the coordinates and getting all of this shit sorted out.

But even when he got those coordinates, what would be waiting for him? And what price would he have to pay in order to get those powers back?

A problem for a later time. Right now he needed to deal with the matter at hand.

He spent the rest of the day trying to dodge his daughter’s advances, which ranged from mild flirtation to some very aggressive and clumsy attempts at instigating sex. He ended up taking refuge in his new office, door locked tight and using his home computer to google the lunar cycle.

Sam was tentatively in luck, there was another full moon tomorrow tonight. If everything went well he could have this all done by the week’s end.

5:15 rolled around and Sam decided to make a break for it, rushing past his lascivious family and getting into his car.

It was 5:30 on the dot when he arrived at the park and he could see Lisa sitting at a bench, throwing pieces of bread to a gaggle of hungry ducks. Tearing off little chunks and ensuring they all had something to eat.

In the orange glow of the late afternoon sun, the wind in her hair and the faint smile on her face she really looked quite pretty.

He wondered why he had never noticed that before? She was around every day dropping mail off, and always nice the few times they spoke.

The office was a highly stressful environment with a lot of big personalities at play and for someone as young as Lisa in such a small capacity it was probably easy to overlook her.

Or maybe it was simply a matter of Sam’s perception. He didn’t pay attention because really, did he truly concern himself with anything that didn’t directly involve him at work? Lisa joined the company right as Sam’s existential crisis had begun. She didn’t register to him, because…nothing registered to him except for his own perceived shitty life.

But Sam was starting to realise…his life wasn’t shitty. It wasn’t exciting, sure, but it was far from awful. These last couple of days had proven to him that excitement didn’t necessarily mean good, and boring didn’t necessarily mean bad.

He shook off his internal musings. Time to get this over and done with.

“Lisa!” He called, a smile in place as he approached.

The young woman looked up at him with a slight start, but she quickly settled into an awkward, shy smile as she rose to greet him.

“H-hi, Sam.”

“Thanks so much for meeting me,” he said with genuine gratitude, “It’s been an absolute pig of a week and losing my phone on top of it…well, you can imagine how much I was freaking out.”

She smiled a little and dared to meet his gaze. “Yeah, I get you. I’m a bit…um, I guess you could say OCD with my things. Everything has to be in its proper place, the routine needs to be kept…” she trailed off before realisation struck her, and she hurriedly dug through the bag she was wearing and pulled out his phone. “Here you are.”

He took it from her perhaps a tad quick, opened it and checked through everything. Battery was a little low, but otherwise it was fine. He checked his work emails. Thank Christ. Still there.

“Thank you, so so much,” he breathed out and without thinking pulled the girl into a tight hug, “you don’t know how much of a life saver you are!”

That earned a squeak of surprise from the girl, who awkwardly patted his back, unsure how to react to the sudden display of appreciation.

Their close proximity immediately brought something to Sam’s attention. Something was pressing against his thigh. Something noticeable. Something long.

Oh fuck.

It all came back to him. During his half assed and poorly thought out attempt to prove his powers to Jerry, he’d made Lisa a futa. She now had a dick. And it was….hard?

He pulled away, trying to conceal his shock. “S-sorry,” he quickly said, “got a bit carried away there.”

There was a deep blush across the young woman’s face, and a noticeable tent in her work pants.

“No…no, it was…um…it was nice.”

Sam took a moment to examine the girl. Could it be that she…had a crush on him? Surely not. He hadn’t altered her mind when he made that change, so she wouldn’t be compelled to think of him that way.

Unless she was just…genuinely attracted to him? Boring, middle aged Sam Blake. That…was strangely sweet and encouraging.

He resolved himself there and then that when he got his powers back he would change her anatomy back. It was the least he could do.

“Well,” he said, “I have to get going, but uh…I’ll see you at work?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded, still blushing. “Y-yep!”

It had begun to cloud over some outside so they said their goodbyes and Sam returned to his car. Luckily he had a GPS and after spending a few minutes fiddling around with it he managed to punch in the coordinates. The location was a fair drive, really it was outside the city limits.

He glanced outside. No hint of the sun, and it had begun to rain. Still, that shouldn’t effect the moon or anything, right? It was still a full moon even with cloud cover.

Slowly he drove out of the park and begun to follow the GPS, windscreen wipers desperately keeping his vision clear as the rain set in.

Lisa was trudging along, getting progressively soaked on her walk home.

Fuck it. Sam was a prick but he wasn’t that big of a prick to leave the poor girl out in that mess. He pulled up next to her.

“Need a lift?”

She looked at him hesitantly for a beat, and then gratefully jumped into the passenger seat. The rain had been coming down harder than he thought, her hair and clothes clung to her body desperately. Her bra-clad breasts became more pronounced in her soaked white blouse, and her bulge was outright unmistakable in her grey work pants. Fucking hell, it was a goddamned trouser snake. Obscene on an otherwise dainty young woman.

“Where to?” He asked, distracting himself from the sight.

“Oh, you only have to drop me off at the nearest bus stop, it’ll be fine.”

He waved that away as he returned to the road. “You saved my ass getting my phone. Least I can do is it take you home.”

She blushed again. “Well, it’s a fair distance, I don’t really live in the centre of town.”

“No worries” he tapped his GPS, “ I was already on my way to the outskirts.”

There was a flush of relief and she gave him the address. It was a long drive but traffic was a bit of a bitch so he was kept occupied for the first half hour. But eventually things relaxed outside and the silence got a little awkward.

“So, you must have a fair commute every day.”

Lisa hummed. “It’s not so bad, I like the bus.”

“But still, that must be exhausting.” He glanced at her. “Ever think about getting a place closer to work?”

“Couldn’t afford it. My parents weren’t super…keen on the idea of me moving to the city so I had to pay my own way,” she shrugged. “This was all I could manage.”

Sam thought of his own daughter. Even if she wanted to move to the middle of the Amazon he’d still try and support her. “That sucks,” he said at last, “hopefully you’ll be able find something else.”

“It’s not so bad. I just get up a little earlier and I pretty much always make it to work on time.”

He hummed, but otherwise was silent. They kept like that for another few minutes.

“You don’t remember my first day, do you?”

The question surprised him. What the fuck did that have to do with anything? “Um…no, sorry. Work is kind of a blur most of the time.”

“I was late that morning. I hadn’t figured out my schedule yet, it was my first week in the city and I completely fucked up, maybe a half hour late coming into the office.”

Hearing this girl swear was strange, but Sam found it oddly charming.

“And Vicky comes storming out of her office, flames practically snorting from her nose and she just starts to tear chunks out of me. Calling me useless, worthless, idiotic, every name under the sun. And I thought to myself ‘is this it? Is this what it’s like to live in the city and work an office job? Maybe my parents were right. Maybe I should just give up and go crawling back.’ It was a struggle not to cry,” she paused, and Sam could feel her gaze settle on him. “But then you came up to us, literally the only one in the office who didn’t duck for cover, and you told Vicky to cut me some slack. So then she started in on you instead, and my ass was saved.”

Sam blinked. Had he really done that? Sure Vicky had chewed him out. But she always did that, right? Searching the length of his memory, he vaguely recalled butting in on one of her rants. Not that it ever did any good. Often he just did that to break up the endless boredom of his work life.

“Vicky yells at everyone,” he said at last, lamely. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“It was though,” she insisted. “I had no family, no friends when I moved here. It was a huge adjustment. I figured everyone here would be indifferent or mean. But you weren’t.”

“I did the bare minimum,” he said, pulling up in front of Lisa’s apartment complex. He turned to look at her now, taking in how intently she was staring at him. “Really, it’s nothing special.”

“You were nice.” She insisted. “You’ve always been a very nice guy Sam. Even now, dropping me home when you didn’t have to. People aren’t like that, not usually.” There was something about the way her eyes shone as she looked at him, so much emotion there. “I think that’s pretty special.”

He opened his mouth to argue but she beat him to the punch.

“Well, thanks for the lift.” She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “ have fun doing whatever you’re doing! I’ll seen you at work!”

And like that she got out of the car and ran into her apartment building.

Sam sat in silence for a minute or two. For months now he was convinced he was living a mediocre existence, a boring nothingness not effecting anything. But maybe that was all just his depressive bullshit skewing his perception. He thought about Lisa’s words. He thought about his daughter, happy, healthy and ready to graduate and face the world. And his wife had never once complained about their life together in all the past nineteen years.

Maybe…maybe all things considered, he wasn’t shit. Maybe he was living a good life?

He was still mulling all this over as he followed the GPS to the coordinates. It took him to a singular building standing among a vacant lot just outside of town. He glanced at the sky. The rain had stopped, and through the early night clouds he spotted the full moon. It was now or never.

He entered the building.

The lobby was typical. Sterile. Clean. A single desk with a nondescript receptionist sitting behind it.

“Hello?”

The man smiled blandly. “Hello Mr Blake.”

“You…know who I am?”

The same bland smile. “We know everything Mr Blake. I take it you’re here about a subscription?”

Sam wanted to ask more. How did they know? How were they doing this? were they Gods? Angels? Demons? Aliens? Multidimensional entities that defied human conception? But he was too fucking tired. He just wanted his life back, the mysteries of the universe could wait for another day.

“I’ll take the subscription or whatever,” he said wearily, “what do I have to do, where do I sign?”

The man’s face twitched slightly. And he produced a glowing purple orb from his pocket. “You see this? This is a reality marble. Good for one year of power speech.”

“And what do I have to do to get it?” He asked. “Do I …sign my soul away or something?”

Another twitch of a smile. “No. You simply have to make another spoken change and it will latch itself to your soul.”

He opened his mouth, preparing to do just that. Something about the man’s face have him pause though. There was an air of something…inhuman about this. “But…what do you get out of this?”

A genuine smile now, wide and toothy. It made Sam’s blood run cold. “Oh, not much. Life can be so dull, don’t you think? A boring bland existence. It’s hell.” He held out the orb. “Me and my people get endless amounts of entertainment watching you all trying to grope with the powers of reality. It’s a wonderful distraction, that is all.”

Sam licked his lips. “What if…what if I only want to make a single change?”

“If you’re smart about it, you can make it so.” His eyes seemed to glow with malice. “But could you really give all that power up? Knowing that you’d have a full year to be master of all human existence?”

Sam thought about it. After an eternity of wrestling with himself he finally opened his mouth.