The perfect sandwich, with an egg.

Matt arrived home late today, having been stuck on the phone at work past closing time with an upset costumer. The call began at noon, cutting into his lunch break, and lasted several hours until it was past time to go home, and the call only finally ended when the customer became so fed up with the process they hung up. Matt wasn't bad at his job, and he certainly gave his best, but sometimes that just wasn't good enough, and it wasn't a situation where he could ask for help from a coworker or one of the higher-ups, either. He was simply stuck until either it ended or it simply became so late he had no choice but to hang up himself, with the promise to pick up where they left off the next day. On top of everything, he hated the sound of his own voice, but finding another job was out of the question as nothing else around here paid well enough for him to live on his own as he did.

He thought the long day over in his mind as he finished putting together his sandwich as muffled yelling came from downstairs. It seemed the two ladies in the apartment below his were arguing over something. He chose to ignore it, and instead turned on the tv, setting it at a slightly higher volume than normal. The yelling stopped suddenly, and muffled rhythmic speaking could be heard. It was strange. Deciding to ignore this, he let out sigh as he sat down on the sofa after his long day, plate in hand, and just as he was about to take a bite, an enormous cloud of smoke suddenly erupted right in front of him.

Matt coughed at the sudden smell of sulfur, and a large figure emerged from the smoke. It was tall and menacing, covered in red fur, and looked much like a dragon. Black flames flickered from its eyes. Matt and the dragon-thing stared at each other for tentative moment, then the creature began to snarl. Finding himself quite confused and not wanting to get eaten, Matt slowly proffered his sandwich. The creature gave it an uncertain sniff, then grabbed it and ate the thing whole, barely chewing it in its massive mouth. Its eyes opened wide in surprise. The yelling from downstairs resumed, now even louder than before. Both he and the creature looked at the floor, and came to the same realization at the same time. His neighbors were the ones who summoned... Whatever this thing was, but it showed up in the wrong house. The creature gave Matt another stare, showed him a thumbs up, and vanished in another puff of smoke, leaving behind one very bewildered man.

Two loud shouts of surprise were heard, then the cacophony downstairs immediately subsided, but Matt was too out of it to notice that. As the smoke dissipated, he released the breath he wasn't aware he'd been holding. He opened the windows and turned on a fan to get rid of the sulfur smell, and wondered if he should confront his neighbors about what just happened. He nearly got eaten because of them! After considering his options, he decided to ignore it and look for somewhere else to live right away. He didn't want to get involved in whatever the hell was going on downstairs. Suddenly his stomach growled. He groaned, bemoaning the loss of his sandwich, but he wasn't too upset over it as that BLT had apparently just saved his life. Not wanting to expend that much effort a second time, especially this late, he quickly threw together a PB&J.

Opening his laptop while munching on his new inferior sandwich, Matt typed in his password with one hand and idly browsed his messages as he finished eating. Once nourished, he checked the local listings for a new place to live, but there wasn't anything else in the area this cheap. He groaned. How did people even afford this area? He even had himself a decent-paying job but everything else was out of his price range. He knew his friends around here were struggling to make ends meet, even with roommates. That was it! He would just have to deal with living with someone else for awhile until he could figure out a real solution. He could leave single living behind if it meant never coming face-to-face with mysterious entities again, or the people who summoned them. He browsed the listings again, and once again, there was nothing he could afford. He shut his laptop in frustration and got ready for bed. He still had work tomorrow after all.

The next day, Matt slogged through another several-hour call with the same customer from yesterday, but thankfully, the issue was finally resolved. Before lunch this time even. After making it through the day, he managed to return to his apartment complex on time. He sped past his neighbor's door, wanting to associate with them as little as possible before climbing the stairs to his home. As he put the key in the door to unlock it, he could hear clanging sounds coming from within. "An intruder!?" he thought. He stopped. The racket continued as he stood still. After thinking it over, he decided to try to catch a glimpse of his intruder then call the police. He carefully unlocked the door as quietly as possible. Opening it a crack, he noticed scratches all over the floor and a large red tail sitting on the floor.

"Oh god!" Matt accidentally said out loud.

The clanging sound stopped, and a set of three fiery eyes turned to look at him. "Good. You're back," A deep voice resounded. A clawed hand dragged him in. "Give me your good food, this cold stuff isn't appetizing."

Matt looked at his fridge. The inside was beat up, and most of his food was missing. Shredded plastic containers littered the floor. "Y-Y-You're here for f-food?" he asked meekly.

"Yeah. That thing you gave me as an offering yesterday was good! I want more. None of this cold stuff is good."

"Y-You have to..." He started hyperventilating. This thing was back, it was hungry and he was supposed to sate it somehow.

"Hm? Something wrong, human?"

Matt staggered backwards and fell, and was now sitting on the floor. "What do you want?" He managed to get out between breaths.

"I'm hungry, that's all. Normally I hunt, but I want more delicious things. Where are they?"

"You have to cook the food." He replied, starting to calm down slightly. "It's not very good, the way you're eating everything."

"Cook? You mean like with a fire? I suppose there are some races that do that. Very well. Cook something for me."

Matt looked back at his fridge in fear. There was hardly anything left."I don't know if I can."

"What's the problem, human?" It asked menacingly with its eyes furrowed at him.

"Y-You already ate everything! There's nothing left!"

The creature grumbled angrily. "...Fine. I will admit I am at fault here. I will not consider this a breach of contract."

"Contract?"

"Yes. The contract you agreed to yesterday."

"What? I didn't agree to anything! You left just as soon as you showed up!"

"By providing a satisfying offering, I agreed to provide you with a service. Something those two imbeciles below couldn't do."

Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

"You were going to eat me! I had no choice!" Matt yelled, finally standing up as he started to gain confidence in the situation.

"You were mistaken. I thought you were the one who summoned me without following the rules. I was angry at you."

Matt stood there flabbergasted. Unknowingly, he had made the situation a whole lot worse. Now he had to deal with a contract with some otherworldly being. "So... What do we do now?"

"Right now I want more food. I'll provide you with greater service for feeding me more delicious things."

"Okay. Okay, I... Have an idea, but you'll have to wait a bit!"

The creature grumbled again. "Very well."

Matt did the only thing he could do in this situation, and ordered delivery. He had hoped the nearby pizza place would be the fastest, but the message in his browser said forty minutes until it arrived. Not wanting to waste any more time trying to find something else, he conceded and ordered a variety of pizzas. This was going to hurt his wallet.

“Interesting,” The creature said in its deep voice. “The food just arrives by itself?”

“Someone else does the cooking, and then they bring it here.”

“I see! I can’t wait!”

“I hope it satisfies you.”

“It had better. I’m wasting quite a bit of time here, you know.”

“No, I don’t know! I didn’t even know I agreed to a contract in the first place! And why does that mean you get to just come here and tear apart my kitchen and eat all my food anyway?!”

“I decided to provide you with greater service if you could provide me with more good food.”

“That! You decided that on your own! And what does ‘service’ mean anyway?”

“Well, you humans would put it as granting wishes.”

“Wishes? Seriously?”

“Yes. So, human. What do you wish for?”

“I don’t want any wishes. I never asked for this.”

“I’m here, whether you like it or not. And I can’t leave you alone until my side of the contract is fulfilled. So make a wish.”

“Um...” Matt hurriedly ran through the possibilities in his mind. Sure, he wanted money and a good life just like anyone else would, but he didn’t dare make a wish for something so extravagant. This could only be trouble. He realized he’d been staring at his ruined kitchen for awhile now. He just had to make a simple wish and this could all go away. “I wish for my kitchen to be returned to normal.”

The creature smiled. “Very well. And because I enjoyed your offering so much, I will even do it free of consequence.”

“What!? You didn’t say anything about consequences!”

“Relax, human. I said there wouldn’t be any.” The creature lifted its hands and a wave a deep purple energy spread over the kitchen. Matt looked on in surprise as the scratches and dents all repaired themselves. Even the food containers on the floor were repaired, but the food they previously contained was not replaced. The creature, seeing Matt’s stupefied reaction, wore a smug look on its face. Everything was returned to how it had been before the creature arrived. Matt collapsed into a chair.

“That was magic, wasn’t it?”

“That’s the human word for it, yes.”

“Wow.”

“Hmph!” The creature became smug again.

“So… Is the contract done now?” Matt asked nervously.

“Yes.”

“Then, um, why are you still here.”

“Because you made another contract by promising to feed me delicious things again.”

“What!? That was so you wouldn’t destroy my house!”

“What’s done is done. Is the food nearly here?”

Matt sighed and check the time. Twenty minutes left. “Thirty minutes,” He said, just in case they were late.

The creature suddenly leaped forward and was now practically nose to nose with Matt. “Don’t. Lie. To me.”

“S-Sorry! I’m sorry!” Matt exclaimed, leaning as far back in his chair as he could. “I just said that in case it's late! I didn’t mean anything by it!”

The creature stared into Matt’s eyes with its own set of flaming ones. “I’ll look past it. This time.” The creature then backed off. Matt broke out into a cold sweat. This thing could detect lies on top of everything else. He would have to be careful of what he said from now on. The creature curled up in the living room where there was enough space for its massive body. “I’ll wait here.” The next twenty minutes were the longest of his entire life. The two sat in silence, waiting for the pizza. Eventually, the doorbell rang. Matt was about to open the door, when he suddenly realized his guest was quite visible. He turned around to tell it to do something, but the living room was empty. Turning back around, he greeted the delivery man and set the large stack of boxes on the counter.

“Throwing a party?” The delivery man asked.

“Yeah, something like that.” Matt replied.

Matt shut the door and turned around to see the creature suddenly behind him, nose to the boxes.

“Smells promising,” the creature said.

“I hope so. I paid a lot of money for that.” Matt said as he was opening the boxes and laying them out on the counter.

The creature ate handfuls at a time, not minding the temperature at all. A human’s mouth would be covered in burns if they ate like this. “Yes! Yes! Who knew humans had such good food!? Oh, you’re getting extra nice service this time!”

Matt smiled wanly, “That’s great.”

The creature finally settled down and was now licking its claws and muzzle clean. When it finished, it gave Matt a strange look that he could only interpret as contentment. It stood up and slowly made its way too him, then suddenly grasped his head with one of its still slightly wet hands. Memories flashed through his mind.

Suddenly Matt remembered the time when he wore his sister’s pants. They fit weird, but nobody noticed he wasn’t wearing boy jeans that day. He remembered how easily he made friends with girls growing up. He remembered being a little boy and seeing his mom put on makeup, and then secretly putting on her lipstick that night. He remembered a lot of incidents. Hating his voice. Hating having to shave his face every single day. Lamenting how men’s clothes didn’t do anything for him. Feeling uncomfortable when his dad said how proud he was to have a son. Coming across a character in a book named Ivy, and really relating to her. He opened his eyes.

“I have granted your deepest wish. I’ve enjoyed your food a lot, Ivy.”

The first thing Matt noticed was that his hand was smaller. His gaze traveled up his arm. His arm wasn’t covered in hair anymore. His chest now had breasts. He tilted his head down in surprise, and felt something move with him. He grabbed it, and realized his hair was long now. He got up and started running to the bathroom to look at his reflection, and tripped over his clothes, falling face-first into the floor. He grabbed his nose in pain. “Oww...” His voice was different he suddenly realized. He got up and carefully made his way to the bathroom.

Matt gasped when he saw his reflection. It wasn’t him in the mirror, not like he was used to seeing. In the reflection stood a girl, looking much like his older sister. Long black hair, hazel eyes, somewhat small build. “Ivy… It called me Ivy.” Matt, now Ivy, started crying again. She had gone twenty-six whole years without knowing what was wrong the entire time. All that depression, the self-hatred, being friends with girls but never having a satisfying romantic relationship with one, it all made sense now. How could she have missed this? It seemed so obvious! She started laughing.

Ivy undressed to see her new body. She still had that mole on her left thigh. The scar on her right arm where a dog bit her was still visible. All the little things were still there, but now they were on the right body. This was beyond unbelievable, and for the first time in her life, she felt really uplifted and happy in a way she had never felt before.

Ivy put her clothes back on and frowned. They didn’t fit her anymore. In fact, nothing she had would fit. As if answering her complaint, her pants shortened and shrunk to fit her new frame. Her shirt did the same, and suddenly she was wearing a bra that hadn’t been there before. She gasped in surprise as her bathroom filled with feminine products. She returned to the living room and opened her laptop to check all the pictures of her in them. As she browsed through them her mind filled with memories of her new life. It was pretty much the same, but now she was a woman in them.

Ivy laughed with glee. She never knew she could feel so happy and so right. First order of business in her new body was to go out in public and restock the fridge.

With time Ivy settled into her new life. She actually enjoyed her job helping people over the phone now that she didn’t hate her voice. She was a little bit closer with her mom and sister than she had been before. There were a lot of little changes that happened, and overall everything just felt perfect. She was in bliss. Time passed, and one day as she got home from work, she found a big red monster with flaming eyes in her apartment.

Ivy dropped her things and ran up to the monster, wrapping it in the best hug she could muster. “Thank you. Thank you so, so much for what you did for me.”

“I was simply fulfilling a contract,” the familiar deep voice replied.

“Why are you here?”

“I’m hungry.”

“Okay, but no contracts this time. I’ll fix you up a feast.”