[TF, M -> Digital Assistant, M -> Modest Female, Mental Changes, Identity Changes]

"Hey, how’d the interview go?”

The metal tinkling of keys dropping into the dish left near the front door was the immediate answer. Into the room staggered Sam, looking like he’d been trying to psych himself up outside the cramped apartment. It was largely unsuccessful, and Sam’s roommate could still see the depression haunting his friend’s face.

“Look, Jake, you gotta know I’m trying.” Jake nodded, letting Sam continue. “It’s just no one is hiring. This economy, it’s all gone to shit. Half a dozen interviews this month, and I’ve applied to everything within The City that has a job vacancy listed. The positions are open, but no one is hiring to fill them. Just vague promises of ‘We’ll hold onto your resume’ or ‘We’ll call if something changes’.”

It was hard to watch his friend like this; Jake could see the light drained out of Sam. He had to face the facts though. “Look, man, I’ve got to bring up the rent…” The last bit of energy Sam was holding onto escaped him, and he collapsed onto the other end of the couch so he didn’t have to look at Jake. “Hey, it’s not that bad. I’m not going to kick you out. But I can’t afford to keep us afloat, pay for double the electric and food now that you’re not pulling in paychecks. So… I found another solution.”

Sam perked up. It wasn’t enough to get him to look over, but it was something. “Yeah, what is it?”

Jake lifted up his phone. “I found this app. It promises to be able to digital encode a person into a digital assistant. Ya know, like how you can ask your phone questions and it can answer them, or make phone calls or whatever?”

That seemed to be enough to get Sam to turn and face Jake. “What, you’re saying I should just live on your phone? Why?”

Jake waved his hand at the room around them. It was a small studio apartment, and the two guys had been sleeping a few feet from each other this entire time. While Jake had the bed, the couch Sam slept on right up against the bed. Any other free space was covered in boxes in various states of being unpacked that Sam had hurried into the space when he moved in. “Sam,” Jake led into his argument, “look around. Really, how long do you think we can keep doing this? This way, we both can have our space, we can both enjoy our own things, and we can get you back out of there as soon as one of your jobs gives us a call back.”

Sam sat back, looking around the room. “Would I feel anything? Or would I just be some floating disembodied mind?”

Jake held up his phone. “You’d have your own space - think like a virtual room. You’d be able to interact with anything we create in there and also have a way to interact with the outside world. It sounds pretty comfortable, I’m almost going to be jealous of you.” He couldn’t help but chuckle, it really did sound comfortable. With a nod and a sigh, Sam gestured at Jake’s phone and shrugged, then gave a thumbs up. Jake held back his phone, more symbolically than anything. “Now, hang on. I want to make sure you understand what I’m saying. You’d be nothing more than a bunch of code. Now that means that you can be altered or changed, ok? It also means you’re my property, in a legal sense. So, I want to make sure that you’re ok if I make any changes to you during this time? I won’t turn you into some floating paperclip nightmare or anything, but dude… it’s been months since I’ve had a girl by here, and I’ll be honest, I can’t promise you’d be a dude a lot. Ok?”

Sam frowned. “Not like I have much choice here, right?” He leaned back, letting his head tilt up toward the ceiling. “Well, you know better than anyone else that I’ve wondered what it would be like to be a chick. I mean…” Sam cupped the air in front of his chest, then chuckled. “There’d be some benefits, right? So I guess what I’m saying is yes, I get what you’re saying and I’m fine with it.”

A few taps on the screen of his phone navigated to the app, strangely titled ‘Real Assistant’. It was already logged in, but it indicated that there were no assistants loaded. There was a giant button that read ‘Create New Assistant’. Jake slid his phone over to Sam. “All up to you now.”

Sam pressed the button, and then he vanished.

Jake awkwardly waited a moment in his now empty apartment before exhaling a breath he didn't know he had been holding. The screen on the phone's surface had changed, and Jake picked it up for a better look. There was Sam, posed as if he was standing against a featureless background. His finger touched the flat glass that separated them, and as Jake moved it around he saw Sam's body turn and spin, pivoting to give a view of all sides.

It was becoming difficult to ignore the flashing buttons to the side of Sam. One was labeled as "Confirm" while the other was marked "Cancel." It was the moment of truth, and Jake wasn't sure why he felt a tinge of hesitation. This felt like one of those moments that can't be turned around later, and besides, as Jake rationalized, Sam had agreed and the apartment already felt more like it belonged to Jake again.

The confirm button flashed at Jake's touch, his finger jabbing it before he could second guess himself. As he lifted his finger away, he saw a progress bar that seemed to indicate the application loading. A few stress filled minutes later, Sam appeared. A room faded in around him, looking like a simple apartment though far more modest and spartan than Jake's. It consisted of a bed, a small vanity, and a television. Jake dragged his finger on the display, rotating the room. Sam seemed to follow the rotation, keeping his gaze on Jake somehow.

"Hey, can you hear me?" Jake nearly dropped the phone at the sound of Sam's voice. Sam was looking right at him. "I can see you through this floating rectangle thing that keeps moving… is that your phone screen? It must be using your camera…"

Jake gulped and nodded, it made sense. His silence suddenly became awkward. "So… you ok?"

It felt dumb to ask, and apparently even Sam thought so based on the small chuckle he let out. "Yeah man, it's fine. Actually, it's pretty nice in here, even if it's pretty boring. Maybe we can spruce the place up?"

The tension left Jake's body, and he sighed in relaxation. His friend was alright, even if in a strange place. "Not yet, remember the deal?" The smirk that came to his face wasn't malicious. It wasn't much of a secret that Sam was curious about life as a girl, and this seemed an easy way to experiment with that.

Sam, for his part, just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, go for it. I guess I don't have a say now, not like there's a big button to let me out on my side of this!"

Jake chuckled, nodding idly while looking for the editor. It was strangely buried in the options, and upon clicking it he was presented with a long document. It seemed the standard legal nonsense, mostly beyond his understanding anyway. Jake accepted the terms, and suddenly Sam appeared on screen against the same dark background with plenty of selections around him.

From Sam's perspective, his room faded away around him and he was suspended in the void. There was no up or down that he could discern, similarly there was no way to tell if he was upright or reclined or even upside down. He tried to move, talk, shout, even breathe but to no success. His body was rigidly under the control of Jake. Speaking of, the floating viewport into the real world was gone. Perhaps that didn't exist in this void, Sam reasoned. In its place was a mirror, perhaps showing what Jake was seeing, or perhaps to give Sam his own view of what was happening.

He was about to grow bored again when suddenly everything felt different. Watching the mirror, he saw himself completely naked, the change in sensation from the new skin-on-skin contact he felt. He eyed himself over, knowing he wouldn't see this body again until a job came through. He was thin, not fit or thick, just without much in either muscles or fat on his frame. Roughly average in pretty much every way, even below the belt. His dirty blonde hair fell around his face, slightly shaggy and unkempt as he usually wore it, with his brown eyes peeking out from behind some of the overgrown bangs.

He was snapped out of his trance with a stifled gasp that remained trapped in his lungs. Sam's legs bowed out, and looking at the reflection he saw that his genitals - normally average sized - were suddenly ridiculously oversized. It seemed Jake had become curious about that slider in particular, and Sam now had an engorged member as thick as his torso between his legs. A moment of intrigue passed, leaving a sour taste for Sam as he viewed the potential output. He couldn't explain it, but it didn't seem right.

It didn't remain for long though. Sam was watching it as it changed this time, dwindling back down past his normal size and into his body, leaving a tidy little slit. It looked modest and in some immeasurable way better than having a massive dick. Strange, how it worked like that. At least he was normal, or even a little cute.

Changes washed over his body strangely. They didn't quite feel instant, but instead like it was being loaded in pieces on him. He watched the hair disappear from his body, leaving him completely bare, before watching his head hair, eyebrows and eyelash pop back into existence. When his hair came back, it grew out in stunted bursts past his hips, then back up to his shoulders, then a few inches longer. Sam realized that Jake must've been dialing in the length, figuring out what he liked.

There were little, almost imperceptible changes too. Sam's shoulders narrowed slightly while his hips shifted to a feminine structure. His body developed a small layer of fat that made him look soft and delicate. Breasts formed on his chest, Sam noted with an air of detachment. He watched them balloon to ridiculous sizes in the mirror image, before shrinking to hardly noticeable bumps. It was hard to think of this as "his" body. Instead, it almost seemed easier to consider it a stranger's body he was watching. The person in the mirror was becoming a cute girl. Rather modest, for Sam's tastes, but still cute. Her face shifted slightly, and her jaw and cheekbones realigned to fit an image of femininity that Sam himself didn't have.

Suddenly, there was nothing. The magical mirror had disappeared, and Sam was still left frozen. It was hard to tell if he even existed, being unable to move or breathe and with no stimulus to his senses other than his own thoughts and imaginations. It was in this nothingness that Sam heard a voice. Strangely he knew it was his voice, even though it was higher pitched and with a cadence that seemed like a happy-go-lucky girl was saying it.

"My name is Samantha." Samantha would have looked surprised in response. He knew that wasn't his name, but now nothing came to mind other than Samantha.

"My name is Sally." "My name is Sarah." "My name is Sam." "My name is Sami."

The voice - his voice - finally stopped. It was almost dizzying trying to keep track of what had happened. Even though he was sure he heard his real name during that list of identities, it was now lost to him. The only thing left to him that was his identity was the name 'Sami', and he couldn't argue with it. It clearly was his name even if he felt like it wasn't.

"I'm a girl. I've always been a girl. I'm Jake's girlfriend."

Sami's voice kept saying these statements, and she doubted how true they were based on her confusion with her name. She knew it was strange to say these facts about herself and that only added to her concern. Ultimately though she had nothing to go on. Her doubts were unfounded because as far as she could remember, she had been a girl, and she was dating Jake currently.

Before Sami could worry too much about the situation though, she found herself back in the small apartment space laying on the bed. Experimentally, she lifted her hand examining it in front of her face. Her nails came to tips slightly longer than how she was used to keeping them, but they weren't painted or anything. Sami sat up in bed and walked to the vanity, looking at her new reflection for the first time.