Alter Boys

by Tym Greene   

Transformative magic—the “Alterative Arts”—has been discovered, and it has worked its changes on our world...specifically, how actors get “makeup” and “costuming” for their roles. For one actor preparing for a small part in certain wildly successful streaming sci-fi series, it turns out that life between scenes isn’t all that bad either...

While there are innumerable rules to magic, one of the simplest—and therefore the one for which its practitioners sought most dearly for a loophole—was autogenesis. Pulled from the pages of discredited tomes about the spontaneous generation of life, the definition has changed from “creating life from a (metaphorical) vacuum” to “creating something from nothing.” Apparently magic couldn’t create anything ex nihilo, but only change what already existed.

The best magicians ended up working where appearance was everything: in Hollywood. At first the Alterative Arts department was simply tasked with improving stars: Photoshop and airbrushing made real, stretch marks, freckles, acne, grey hairs removed entirely (or, more accurately, the skin and hair cells were replaced with their more-preferable blemish-free versions). But naturally the magicians’ abilities grew, their talents were recognized, and the “Alter Boys” were soon extending creeping tendrils into the costume department, the propmaster’s offices, the hair and makeup trailers, and of course the CGI artists.

Major studios found it cheaper and more effective to have them transmute cardboard sets into stone and metal, to eliminate the upkeep and storage costs of a cast-of-thousands-sized wardrobe, and to eliminate actors’ hours spent in makeup chairs. An actor simply walked into the Alter Boys’ arcane office, and walked out in the form and fashion required for their next role.

There were limitations and drawbacks, of course, even ignoring the picket lines and union rumblings. Matte painters had protested too, when their jobs were phased out by CGI, but that had been a smaller change, gradual and slow. This was swift, and affected so many departments that studio lawyers were kept busy rewriting contracts and finding loopholes of their own. And the magic itself wasn’t perfect, even setting aside the autogenesis issue. Simple changes (removing a wart—or adding one—for example) were simple, fast, and easily reversed. More complex changes naturally required more complex magics, so the studios wisely turned their now-vacant wardrobe and prop storage facilities into housing for actors too-changed to be allowed on the streets.

They were nice enough, like a fancy motel, but there were areas where visitors weren’t allowed where actors working high-profile projects were kept sequestered. Posters touting the value of “Surprise & Delight” and admonishing “#NoSpoilers” gave those verboten corridors the feel of a WWII bunker.

Loose lips..., he thought with a wry, over-large grimace as he padded to his room. Once again he had the uncomfortable thought that he’d made a mistake. This was after all just a bit part—albeit for a massive franchise, and one that he loved—without lines beyond idle croaking, and yet it had taken over his life. He had let it take over, he reminded himself.

Thinking back, he could picture the day he’d made the decision. He’d been standing in the middle of his tiny apartment, frozen with indecision: should he finish the painting and suffer a sore back and lost sleep, or should he go back to bed and hang the consequences. Either way he’d be giving up on a dream, or at least reducing his chances that one or the other would come true: the one that pays the bills, the one he needs if his career as an actor is going to continue; and the other that taps into what seems to be the last remaining vestige of authenticity, untouched by magic.

Ultimately he had made the practical decision. After all, if he were rested for the audition he’d be better able to perform, and he could always go home and paint afterwards. And he had felt better in the morning, and had really been getting into the groove of his painting that afternoon—until he got the phone call.

After that, he wouldn’t have been able to focus on anything, he was too busy celebrating. One pizza and a bottle of cheap champagne later, he was slumped over in his armchair, a happy grin on his face as he snored lightly. The next few days were spent in preparation: having his mail held, setting up an arrangement with a neighbor to keep an eye on his apartment, packing his most important possessions into a long term storage facility.

Filming began the next month, but first he’d had to go to the Alter Boys’ trailer.

For all the mystery and mystique that the public attached to them, what the Alter Boys did was pretty straightforward. Sure, there was the technical wizardry of spell casting, but their sigils were pre-printed in a bastardized Helvetica font and they went through the motions with all the romance of a fast food employee slapping mustard on a bun.

First, he’d had to strip down—sure, they could change his clothes to fit, but that only added to the cost, and sometimes they forgot to change everything back—so they could photograph him front and back as a template for afterwards. Then he stood in the circle painted on the floor, arms out in the standard “T” pose, while they mumbled some chants and examined what must have been the director’s orders. When they shifted, the light showed through the paper and he could see an artist’s rendering of what he could become.

But before he’d been able to process what the sketch looked like, he felt the changes begin. Working from the ground up, they said words and made lazy hand gestures that would tweak his reality. This part seemed to go in slow motion, as each toe lengthened, swelled, and popped into altered existence, bulbous and rubbery. Even though he was unlikely to be seen from the waist down in his one scene, he knew the director was a stickler for realism.

His legs were next, and he had the odd sensation of falling while still standing—like he were riding a fast elevator that was zipping simultaneously up and down—as his legs were shortened, thickened, from his ankles up past his knees. Still, the new strength they gained was a powerful distraction, as was the swell of his rump with jumping muscles. A tingle signaled the lengthening of his spine into a short tail, but a more significant tingle happened up front.

As he stared down out of the corner of his eyes, his balls drew up inside—still there, he could tell, but rearranged to present a sleeker swimming profile, he’d guessed. That, and I’d hate to think what would happen to a pair of low-hangers if I caught them between my thighs in a jump. Trying not to wince, he instead watched his cock growing thicker at the base, its head smoothing out into nonexistence, leaving him with a glossy pink taper that slurped itself inside his body as well.

Only a glistening slit was left at his groin, but he could tell that the merest caress would bring his new shaft springing out again. Much as he wanted to touch it, he knew he couldn’t move—not unless he wanted eyeballs growing out of his hand, or some other such weirdness. His belly and chest thickened as his torso shortened, but his arms’ changes seemed mostly cosmetic. Skin smoothed and mottled peach and browny-grey, until it reached his hands.

He hadn’t realized it, but his feet had lost toes in the transition; a fact that was made very apparent as he watched his hands thicken, swallowing up the pinkie and ring fingers. He now had just two fingers and a stubby thumb on each hand, and it felt oddly good.

He blinked, his throat-sac swelling with pleasure as his head squashed, pushing out a blunt snout between his bulging eyes. A longer tongue flicked out to lick lips that seemed to run halfway around his head. With a ribbiting croak, his cock popped out of its home and he came as the spell finished, taking him by surprise.

As his body finally slumped, freed from the magic’s pressure, the Alter Boys set about mopping up the spray—he’d shot half-way across the room—with the same dismissive air they seemed to have about everything. Apparently, he’d found out later, while the smaller changes (hair color, adding fake buboes, even changing height) merely gave the changee a brief thrill of energy, these all-over sweeping alterations always resulted in orgasm. The Journal of Alterative Arts fobbed it off as a “bio-physical tension relief mechanism,” but the other actors just considered it a perk.

Once the Alter Boys had confirmed that he matched the director’s directions, they’d ushered him to the adjacent trailer where less-skillful mages were kept busy making cheap t-shirts and shorts into fantastical costumes. What they gave him, however, was less impressive: a dark metallic- looking bodysuit (Alien underwear, he thought with a wry and over-large grin) and a brown rough-spun sweater-ish sort of thing. The pants were patched, green, with many pockets. Apparently his broad flippery feet needed no shoes.

They also gave him a terrycloth robe and a set of plain white shirts and shorts, telling him that this was to his attire in the “hotel.” That’s what the actors called the subdivided, formerly- cavernous, space that had once been costume and prop storage and was now their own housing. He was led to the very back where a whole section of rooms had been given over to this particular show. His show, though his part was a tiny one.

The only thing the director wanted more than realism was to “surprise and delight” his audience. He wouldn’t even allow merchandising for fear it would leak important plot elements before each episode were released. So the whole cast had to be sequestered here, unseen by the public, unable to be changed back until it was certain they wouldn’t be needed for another shot. It was hardly luxury accommodations, but neither was it a Sleazy-8 motel.

And now he was stuck, and bored. He certainly couldn’t go home to fetch his painting tools, couldn’t ask anyone to pack them up and bring them to the studio, couldn’t even have new ones bought. He was as effectively quarantined as the sickest plague victim, a thought which reminded him of another bit piece he’d had, as a node-swollen citizen of medieval Florence in some docu- drama.

He chuckled grimly, half-ribbitting, to himself. In a way, that had prepared him for this role. It had been his first time getting magic instead of makeup, and the fat-swollen buboes had been something of a foretaste of his current condition. A bulb-fingered hand stroked his inflated throat sac contemplatively, feeling it thrum with his breath.

But that had been for a single scene, a one-day change-shoot-change deal that hadn’t even required this sort of cloistering. So in that respect he had been unprepared. He hadn’t even brought a book. There was a shelf in his room—two beds, he noted with mild curiosity—with a few well-thumbed paperbacks of the Sue Grafton and John Grisham type. He was thinking he’d have to ask around to see what other rooms might have when he noticed the lump on the second bed.

It was about the size of a Roomba, but while it did have a rounded top—a bit like a dough-boy’s helmet—the under part was oddly rectangular and seemed to be composed mostly of folded-up struts. Sticking out from one end of the top was a dark, glassy circle, just begging to be touched.

He stuck out a finger, feeling the cool of metal and glass against his rubbery skin, and pressed it. There was a soft click and the spoiiing of a sprung catch being released. He had to lean back as the...whatever it was leapt up, revealing the stubby body and stumpy limbs of some kind of robot.

It chittered at him electronically, and he found he was able to understand. He wondered if perhaps the magic had affected his hearing.

“Wark ekket squaatt churt churt.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were...one of us.”

“Urrk churt eketeketek blatt.”

He grinned at the feisty little robot, and held out his hand to shake the little metallic fingers, making introductions. But when he went to say his name, all that came out was: “Cantina Alien #3.” He tilted his head, that didn’t seem right, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what else it could have been.

“Wonk squaaaatt.”

“So you’re just ‘Pit Droid #2’ too?”

The robot nodded, the froggy face reflected in its dark glass nose. “Churt churt blatt urk.”

“‘Pitoo,’ then. I guess you can call me ‘Cannee,’ until this is all over.” And it felt sort of right. Not that he’d be signing any paintings with that name, but it was more fitting than...whatever he was trying to recall. He wondered offhandedly if the Alter Boys did that for high-profile projects like this, to prevent leaks. “Well, Pitoo, I suppose we should get comfortable. Have you been here long?”

The 1.19 meter tall droid had been changed the day previously, as it turned out, and showed him around the wing that was to be their home for the next year-plus. A small lunch room with vending machines and a hot food buffet table felt almost like an alien cantina in itself, packed as it was with dozens of transformed actors; there was also a gym-style collection of lockers and benches attached to a petite exercise room, a few sound-proof booths for practicing lines, and a common area with a shelf full of board games and old movies. In short, it was better than a motel, worse than a hotel, and Cannee found himself okay with that. He even managed to find some sheets of paper and a few pencils to sketch with.

Whether it was from a genuine rapport, or simply because they spent so much time together, he couldn’t tell, but as the days rolled one into the next Cannee found himself genuinely liking the little pit droid. A broad grin would stretch his froggy lips whenever he saw Pitoo toddling around the hallways or folded up compactly on his bed. He’d started asking the robot to pose for him—which he did willingly and tirelessly, holding awkward poses for longer than any living model—and soon he’d filled several sheets with sketches and finished drawings.

The time came for filming, and Canee spent the better part of a day sitting in the dimly-lit cantina set, sipping blue milk and looking like he was having a conversation with his table-mate. As a glorified extra, his job was to ignore the cameras and the main actors going about the business of the scene. He couldn’t help but think it was a lot of work, transforming these actors—the bartender droids, the alien insect sitting across the counter, and of course Canee himself—for what would likely be a few-dozen seconds on screen. Still, the director wanted realism, and Canee wanted the paycheck, so in the end everyone got what they wanted.

When he returned to his shared room, the pit droid was gone. Indeed, he didn’t show up for the next three days, and Canee was starting to worry that something had happened when he heard the click of metal-on-metal. Pitoo’s nosebutton appeared around the door.

“Chuk-chuk-chuk warrk blatt.”

“Reshoots? For three days?”

“Urrrk squonk.”

“I suppose you’re right, technically droids don’t need sleep...” The Alter Boys’ changes seemed to have run deeper than he’d thought. Then, surprising Canee with his directness, Pitoo said quietly: “Churt churt eketeketeketek.”

“Really?” The froggish alien’s eyes stretched wider. “I...I missed you too!” He threw an arm around the little droid’s shoulders and pulled him in for a hug. They stood there for a moment until, feeling a bit bashful and wanting to distract his fellow actor, Canee pointed at the room’s shelf. “I, uh, finished a few drawings while you were gone.”

“Warrk?”

“Here, I’ll show you.” He disentangled himself from the robot and padded across the short-pile carpet. The papers stuck to his fingertips slightly, but he’d gotten used to the sensation over the past few days. In actuality, he’d done little more than sleep, eat, and draw. The other actors had mostly settled into their own schedules and habits, and he was fine with being left alone.

But there was one thing he’d missed.

Holding up the pages, he riffled through them to show Pitoo the more significant drawings. One was an entire sheet filled with almost a dozen little pit droids, each in a different pose, congregated around a ship in a docking bay; he’d drawn a rectangle around the image, roughly proportioned at two-to-three, as though the alien were intending to make a large-scale painting of the group, a high-tech “Last Supper.”

Another page held studies of the pit droid posing with a wrench, a blow torch, a screwdriver, rendered in high contrast like an Art Deco sculpture allegorizing “Work” or “Industry.” Then there were the close-up explorations of his hand, his feet, the reflections of his nose-button. Canee hesitated over the last page, wondering if he should show his temporary roommate. But he looked at the droid and the droid looked back, a sort of understanding carried in their inhuman gaze.

Canee set the other sheets down on the bed beside him and held up the drawing in question. It hadn’t been from any pose Pitoo had taken, but instead had been pieced together from Canee’s other sketches and his imagination, woven together into a single image. Fabric draped across an unseen support, barely dimpled by the light weight of the pit droid, who was stretched out horizontally, left leg canted up, helmet-head resting on his right arm, his left arm slung limply across his boxy torso. It was the stereotypical “Draw me like one of your French girls” pose, but much attention had been lavished on the shading and precise angles of Pitoo’s construction.

The droid reached out to take the drawing, and for a moment Canee was afraid he’d have to watch it crumpled or torn, a fitting punishment for overstepping the limits of their friendship. But Pitoo merely stared at it, motionless as only a robot can be. Finally, he placed it on the bed—neatly squared atop the other pages—and stepped close to the froggish alien. Metallic arms wrapped around Canee’s thick torso and held him in a long, gentle hug.

It took a moment to shake off his surprise, but soon Canee’s arms were wrapped around the pit droid’s body as well. They stayed that way for a while, but neither of them seemed to mind, content with the contact. Finally, Pitoo stood back, his hand on Canee’s knee as he asked, “Squark chuk-chuk-chuk-chuk wonk?”

Canee had to laugh at that, his mouth stretching wide enough to look like the top of his head was going to fall off. “I guess it kindof shows, doesn’t it? Who’d have thought a little robot could be so sexy?” He blushed as he said it, his skin mottling grey and purple. “I do, though. Think you are, I mean.” His gaze dropped to his hands, the fingers’ bulbous tips knotting themselves with embarrassment.

The dun-colored metal of Pitoo’s hand was cool to the touch as he placed it over Canee’s, the paddle-like fingers moving with unexpected tenderness. He looked down, green-and-gold frog eyes meeting glassy black robot sensor, and a wry smile crept across the actor-cum-alien’s wide face. “Of course, I don’t know how this would actually work. Doing, I mean...”

The pit droid chuckled at his friend’s awkwardness and took a step back. A hatch in the round unit that connected his legs to his boxy torso clicked open, a panel flipping out to reveal a rubbery dark...something. At first Canee couldn’t puzzle it out, but then he saw it uncoiling and inflating: a tapered matte grey rubber cone banded by rings of what seemed to be carbon fiber, eventually sticking out a full ten centimeters from the robot’s groin. “So you do have a dick,” the alien laughed as he leaned forward for a better look. “Churt wark ekket blatt.”

“Right, sorry, a ‘scomp link.’ So, does that mean every time Artoo goes up to a data port...?”

“Squoooonk.”

“That...that’s kinda hot.” His fingers made contact, and the merest electrical spark jumped from polymetal to flesh. Canee moaned softly, moving to wrap his hand around the shaft. The tip was gleaming with what seemed to be lubricant, and the whole member seemed to be thrumming softly, as though a tiny air pump within the droid’s body were working to keep it firmly-inflated. Canee’s other hand caressed Pitoo’s head, gliding over the well-worn metal, fingering the simple- yet-complex shapes of the neck joint, sliding down his back. Pitoo, meanwhile, had begun unfastening Canee’s tunic and trousers, nimble little hands spreading open the brown and green fabrics to reveal the glossy alien underwear.

The stretchy metallic fabric clung to the frog’s body, showcasing every curve and bulge to the droid’s attentions, but most of all was the squirming, prodding taper pushing out from Canee’s own crotch. Looking down across the futuristic spandex-clad belly to his writhing cock made him feel like one of the actors in an Alien movie, but the way the material felt gliding across his skin was wonderful. Not enough to prevent him from activating the little switch that would release the static-electrical clasps and allow the space undies to slip off, but still a wonderful feeling.

As his clothes fell onto the bed behind him, both actors were greeted by the sight of Canee’s glossy pink taper waving around. Pitoo caught it, gripping its base with a gentle squeeze before asking, “Blatt eketeketek?”

Obligingly, Canee flipped over onto his belly, after setting his drawings farther along the bed and out of danger. He could feel his stubby little flap of a tail twitching and flagging as he mooned his roommate, allowing the pressure of a robotic claw to shift him over, then down. The bed hardly moved from the pit droid’s minuscule weight as he clambered up to stand between Canee’s legs.

Being just over a meter tall meant that—in this position—Pitoo’s groin was even with Canee’s rump, and the robot took the opportunity to scan what he found. Canee could feel the two tiny hands on his ass, fingers gripping just enough to be noticed. One of the hands left, then returned coated in something slick to prod at his hole.

Trying not to think of how long it had been since he’d done this, Canee willed himself to relax and enjoy the physical contact. As he did, Pitoo’s still-cold fingers slipped in, making the frogman gasp and the robot chitter. The fingers withdrew slowly, carefully.

Canee didn’t even realize that Pitoo’s cock was inside him until he felt himself stretching around it. Likely having adjusted the temperature of his scomp link to match Canee’s body, the droid inched his hips forward further, threading more of himself into his roommate.

The alien’s throat sac inflated with lusty croaks as he thrust one hand between his legs to stroke his own shaft. He idly wondered if a robot could reach orgasm, or if he would keep “interfacing” until Canee had finished. It was all so strange that he already felt himself climbing towards climax. “Oh, ribbit, fuck,” he groaned, voice barely above a gravelly whisper.

“Warrrrk. Chuk-chuk-chuk,” Pitoo replied softly, his hands holding onto the smooth rubbery skin of Canee’s ample ass.

Now that it had warmed up, Canee could feel the flexible scomp link rotating and flexing within him, as though trying to find a compatible dataport. The little droid was humping into him with mechanical regularity, but a judder had begun to disrupt the pattern and the hands had gone from caressing to gripping, using the froggy alien’s mass as an anchor to counterbalance his thrusting.

With a strangled, “Squwark!” the little robot reached his orgasm, flooding Canee with more lube and setting his innards a-tingle with small low-current electronic sparks. They must have zapped the right nerves and nodes—or perhaps it was simply from the feeling of his friend getting off—because Canee’s slick cock twitched and sprayed its load onto the bed beneath him. Deep inside his torso, he could feel his balls aching pleasantly, the same as they’d done when he’d been a human jerking off, as though sore from their little workout.

The smell of frog sweat, alien cum, warming metal, and machine oil filled the room as they flopped over. They didn’t care that they were soaking the sheets, or that Canee’s loud croaking had probably been heard by most of the other changed actors. All that mattered was the feel of skin on metal, and the comfort of companionship. They’d finally found a way to pass the time until their episode was released and the Alter Boys changed them back...if they did.

After all, they could end up being recurring characters, and that would suit them both just fine.

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