The first class after Spring Break is always a killer. I don't know who wants
to be there less - the students or the instructor. For the students like me,
just back from a week on the Florida beaches, the eight o'clock class was sheer
torture. For the instructors... well, as I heard one once remark that teaching
at the college level would be terrific if it weren't for all those fucking
students.

        At least it was a small and generally interesting class, I tried to tell
myself. Literature of the Middle East was one of those courses that was just
original enough to keep me awake at eight in the morning, and my Army experience
in the Gulf meant I was familiar with things that made the literature come
alive. It also gave me a leg up on some of the younger students in the class - a
leg I often needed.

        College had been tough for me. I hadn't been the best student in the world in
high school, and it had taken a four-year stint in the Army to get me enough
money to even go to college. While those four years had given me the maturity I
needed to face college, it had done nothing toward advancing the academic skills
I would need. Here I was a senior and I still had to book it like crazy to
maintain a respectable grade point.

        One would think a guy with the name of Horatio Robert Kramer the Fourth would
be the scion of a wealthy family, sliding through Harvard as his father and
grandfather had done, preparing himself for a career taking over the family
business. No such luck for me, though. Horatio Robert Kramer the Third had been
a lowly English Literature instructor - not even a professor - here at Dykstra
College in Wilmington Station, Kansas. If he and my mother had ever had a
four-figure balance in their savings account, it would have been a miracle.

        When they had both died in a car wreck, I was only twelve. I was raised by my
father's brother and his wife, a childless couple who were about as warm as a
bowl of oatmeal left out in a blizzard. They fed me, at least, and clothed me
after a fashion, but I was more than content to let the Army do all that for me
the day after I graduated from high school. I hadn't seen them since.

        After the Army, Dykstra College was a natural for me. First and most
importantly, it was cheap. As the son of a former member of the faculty, I was
granted by charter a sweet deal on tuition and room and board. Coupled with the
education benefits I had earned in the Army, it meant I could live frugally and
go to school without worrying about working so many hours that my studies
suffered. Now at last I was in my last semester of college. Only a couple more
months until graduation.

        Dykstra was fortuitously a school with a good reputation as well, so my
soon-to-be-conferred degree would have some weight. A solid liberal arts school
that was well endowed, it had developed an excellent reputation throughout the
Midwest. Of course, the football team sucked, but you can't have everything. And
since I wanted to teach literature as my father had and had no talent for
football, Dykstra was the perfect place for me.

        I checked my watch as I heard the Founder's Tower class bells majestically
ringing in the warm spring morning air. Damn. It was running slow. I thought I
still had five minutes to make it to class. Professor Bordman hated to have
students arrive late for his class. And of course, he was never late himself.

        Until that morning.

        I rushed into the classroom and saw my fellow students become suddenly alert.
Realizing that Professor Bordman was not in the room, I guess they had thought I
was he arriving late. Most of the other students looked relieved when they saw
it was me. The exception was Walter Dermott. He looked absolutely crushed.

        I knew why. He and I had been tapped by Professor Bordman to assist him in
running the class. That wasn't as dramatic as it sounded. What we were in
reality were glorified gophers. Professor Bordman was notoriously forgetting his
classroom materials, and Walt and I were often sent to his office to collect his
things. That sort of work never hurts one's grades, so we did it gladly. The
difference was that I did it because I was asked to do it and Walt did it
because he was a brownnoser from the word go.

        We had guys like Walt in the Army, too. They were usually sanctimonious little
toadies who couldn't run the obstacle course in good time or be expected to get
their squad mates through a rough exercise. But they could be depended upon to
take credit for someone else's work or get one of their squad mates in trouble.
In the Army, we had ways of dealing with little shits like Walt. In college,
they flourished with little danger of retribution.

        I nodded nonchalantly at Walt's morning scowl and took my usual seat between
Nancy Sunnington and Dave Melisivaro. They both greeted me warmly. Nancy looked
like I felt. Her hair was its usual tangle of brown strands and she wore less
makeup than Jesse Ventura. She could have been an attractive girl if she chose,
but for some reason, she didn't seem to care what she looked like. She had a
nice slim figure and a cute face, but the figure was usually covered by a baggy
sweatshirt and casual jeans, and the face, as I've already mentioned, was
usually devoid of even basic makeup.

        Nancy could have taken a few lessons from Wyoming Tom. He was the dude who sat
in the back of the room, crossing his legs so tightly that his balls had to look
like pancakes. He did wear makeup. Oh, it was subtle and all that, but with the
black leather pants and silky black shirts he always wore, I was sure he bought
his underwear out of the Victoria's Secret catalogue. Nobody seemed to know much
about Tom. The guys avoided him and the girls were a little envious of him, I
think.

        Now as for Dave Melisivaro on my left, he was a kick. Dave had flunked out of
Rutgers a couple of years earlier and had spent the time out of school crewing a
sailboat for tourists in the Caribbean. Tall, good looking, and personable, he
added a little excitement to the class, especially when he got Walt's goat. I
really liked Dave. We were actually about the same age, Dave just a year younger
than me. We had enjoyed a few beers together over the semester, being the only
two in the class old enough to hit the bars. I knew he came from a wealthy
family in New Jersey and that the only reason he was even in school was the ten
million he would inherit at the age of twenty-five - if he had or was working
toward a college degree, that is.

        "Good break?" Dave asked. He was a man of few words.

        "Great," I replied in kind. "Florida beaches. You?"

        He shrugged. "Bahamas. Atlantis Resort."

        Money talks.

        "So where is Professor Bordman?" Nancy asked, slumping down into her seat in a
most unfeminine manner.

        "He'll be here," Walt said haughtily, as if he knew something we didn't. I knew
he had no idea either, but that was Walt for you.

        But he didn't show. After ten minutes, everyone in the small class was
shuffling about nervously. Professor Bordman just never missed a class, even
when he was ill.

        "How long do we have to wait for him?" Lori Wilbert, the cute little blonde who
sat behind Walt asked.

        "As long as it takes," Walt informed her imperiously.

        "Bullshit, Dermott," I muttered. Jorge Something-or-other, an exchange student
from Central America sniggered. As I've said, nobody liked Walter.

        "Well, I'll give him five more minutes," Dave sighed. "I've got a quiz in
physics I need to study for if he isn't gonna show."

        All of us in the class - and I've already mentioned everyone in the class - was
a junior or a senior. We were all carrying heavy credit loads and all of us had
other things to do. As much as I hated to support Walt's position on anything, I
did realize that if Professor Bordman did show up after we left, we'd all be in
deep shit. He was from the old school in spite of his relatively young age.
Classes that walked out on professors of the old school paid the price.

        "I'll go down and check his office," I volunteered. I didn't mention that I had
a key for it. Professor Bordman had loaned a spare one to me a month earlier and
I had sort of forgotten to give it back.

        "I'll go, too," Walt volunteered. Good old Walt. The last thing in the world he
wanted was for me to find out what was going on before he did.

        "Where did you get the key?" he asked moments later when I unlocked the
professor's door.

        "You don't have one, too?" I asked innocently. It was worth it to see the
pained look on his face.

        Professor Bordman's office looked like a famed Kansas tornado had hit it.
Papers were strewn everywhere. "Oh my God," I mumbled. Someone had been looking
for something. The condition of the office meant it must have been very hard to
find - assuming they found it at all.

        "Mr. Kramer?"

        I jumped at the sweet high voice behind us. I turned to see Ms Price, Professor
Bordman's secretary standing there. I suppose I should say the chunky little
brunette was really the secretary for the entire Literature Department, working
with all five instructors, but she always seemed to have a soft spot for
Professor Bordman. I often thought she had a crush on him. After all, they were
both unmarried and about the same age.

        "You startled me," I told her.

        "Not me," Walt found it necessary to comment. He was duly ignored.

        "Oh my!" she gasped when she saw the condition of the office.

        "Do you have any idea what happened here?" I asked her.

        She shook her head slowly. "No, the office has been closed all morning, and I
came in an hour ago." She stopped for a moment, thinking. That wasn't Ms Price's
strong suit either. "You don't suppose it had something to do with the book, do
you?"

        "Book? What book?" I asked.

        She scurried across the hall to her cramped little office and extracted an
object from her desk drawer. "This was here when I came in," she explained. "It
was in the drawer where I always set my purse."

        I took the book from her, handling it very carefully. The cover was brown, made
of what had once been fine leather, but time had faded it and dried it out until
it had warped the entire book. I opened it carefully, aware of the fact that it
was so old and fragile that the slightest pressure might cause it damage. I was
also aware of Walt straining to see what it was.

        "Can you read it?" he asked as I opened the cover and looked at what had to be
the title page.

        "No," I answered with disappointment. "It's in Arabic."

        "But I thought you were over in the Middle East," Walt commented in an accusing
tone.

        "Have you ever been to Mexico?" I asked. When he nodded, I added, "And how much
Spanish do you speak?"

        He didn't bother to answer. I looked back at the book. "This book is so old
that it would be hard to read even for a native Arabic speaker. Just like our
language, Arabic has probably changed over the centuries. But this word," I
said, pointing at a dramatic swirl of ink, "looks like the Arabic word for
world."

        "He left this with the book," Ms Price said, handing me an envelope. I was
surprised to see my name written on the sealed envelope in Professor Bordman's
sloppy style.

        "Come on," I told them. "The class probably wonders what's going on. Let's go
back there and share this with them."

        I figured Walt would grumble about taking the book back into the classroom, and
I wasn't disappointed. As I said, I knew guys like Walt in the Army. They always
wanted to have little secrets they could use around others to show how much they
knew. Walt wanted to know what the letter was all about before anyone else.
Tough shit, Walt.

        Everyone grouped around us anxiously as I told them what we already knew. Only
Wyoming Tom remained in the back of the room, staring out into the spring day as
the rest of us examined the book.

        "Careful!" Nancy gasped as a little flake of paper fluttered away from the
volume. Dave was holding it, and in answer to her command, he laid it gently on
the Professor's lectern. Then, with the others, he turned his attention to me as
I opened the letter. It had been hastily scrawled out on the back of a college
memo, as if Professor Bordman had been under pressure to finish it quickly.

        For the benefit of all, I read the letter aloud:

                Dear Bob,

                I am writing this letter to you in haste. From my window,
                I can see the man I most dread heading this way. There's
                no time to get away. I can explain everything if you will
                do this one thing for me - take the book in both hands
                and repeat this phrase...

        A sentence of Romanized Arabic words followed. I knew some of them while others
meant nothing to me. Still, I thought I could do a fair job of pronouncing them
correctly.

                After you have said this phrase and while still holding the
                book, think with all your might that you wish me to appear
                in the classroom. Then say it aloud.

                I know this sounds strange, but my very life may depend upon
                it. Please follow my instructions to the letter.

        I finished, "It's signed by Professor Bordman."

        Everyone except Wyoming Tom tried to talk at once. I had to hold up my hands to
stop the babble.

        "I wonder if this is some sort of weird test," Dave pondered above the drone.
It wasn't that far out a suggestion. Professor Bordman was something of a tease
and would often say or do outlandish things just to get us to think.

        "It's weird alright," Nancy agreed, pushing a strand of dingy brown hair back
from her face.

        "But he's in trouble!" Lori pointed out. "We've got to help him." Jorge nodded
in agreement, as did most of the others. Even Wyoming Tom nodded his head, but
it could be that he was just dozing.

        "Now wait a minute." It was Walt, of course. If he hadn't proven to be against
it when all of us were for it, I would have been flabbergasted. "This smacks of
something supernatural. Surely none of you believe in that crap."

        "Then we have nothing to fear, do we Walt?" I pointed out.

        "I'm not talking about fear," Walt hedged.

        "Then let's do it," I said before Walt could figure out just what he was
talking about. I repeated the phrase as Professor Bordman had instructed. Then I
tried to clear my mind, murmuring almost to myself that I wanted Professor
Bordman to appear in the classroom. Did I really expect anything to happen? Of
course I didn't. Deep down, I thought this was one of Professor Bordman's little
tests, too, just as Dave thought. So why did I do it? I suppose the main reason
was because he had asked me to do it. If it was a test, I'd soon see if I had
passed it or not. Aloud, I said, "I wish Professor Bordman was here in this
room."

        Equally important though - I did it because Walt didn't want me to. It should
be obvious by now that I disliked Walt every bit as much as he disliked me.
Supercilious and generally an obstructionist - not to mention a little on the
dumpy side - I would have gladly erased Walt from the face of the Earth if I had
a chance. Or so I thought at the time. When I actually had the opportunity...
but I'm getting a little ahead of myself.

        So since I really didn't believe in the supernatural, imagine my surprise when
the room and everyone in it began to swirl. It was as if everything and everyone
- me included - had been suddenly thrust into a cosmic blender and the switch
had been set to puree. Technically, I suppose I shouldn't have been able to see
anything since my eyes were being pureed with the rest of me. But that wasn't
what happened. My sight remained constant as if it were in the center of the
maelstrom while everything else swirled in a mind-numbing riot of thousands of
colors and hues.

        And strangely, there was no sense of motion. I would have expected to feel
centrifugal forces acting on me, but I felt no motion at all. For that matter,
there was no sound either. There was just the senseless swirling all about me.

        Suddenly it was as if someone had put the brakes on a carnival ride. The
swirling began to slow - slightly at first and then more and more. The colors
resorted themselves, resolving into discernable shapes. There was something
white in the back of the classroom. As I fought to focus, I realized that it was
Wyoming Tom. He was wearing a white silk shirt and white leather pants. No, that
couldn't be, I thought. He had been wearing black, and hadn't his hair been
dark? It was now blonde.

        Stricken, I looked around at my classmates. They all appeared normal - or as
normal as some of them ever got. Except for Wyoming Tom, of course. He looked
down at himself, and I thought I heard him mutter, "Cool."

        "Who are you?" Lori asked. At first I thought she was talking to me, but then I
realized she was looking at someone behind me. I turned and saw a rather
attractive but confused woman standing behind me. She was professionally dressed
in a cashmere skirt and modest white blouse. Her hair was dark and cut short,
but not severely so.

        "Damn!" she uttered. "It works!"

        "What works?" Walt demanded. "And who are you? And how did you get in here
without us seeing you?"

        I shot him an angry look for asking such rude questions, but to myself I
admitted that I was curious about all of those things myself.

        "I... I'm Professor Bordman," she announced a little uncertainly. "I'm Arlene
Bordman."

        "You're related to our Professor Bordman?" Dave asked. "Professor Myron
Bordman?"

        She shook her head, wobbling unsteadily on her heels. "I am Myron Bordman," she
replied. Needless to say, once again everyone tried to talk at once.

        "But I am!" she insisted over the din. I had to admit, she did look a little
bit like our Professor Bordman. She had fair skin and dark brown hair at least,
and she was about the right age. But our Professor Bordman had been short and
was starting to become bald. This woman was actually as tall as he had been, and
her hair was full and healthy. She might be a little old for me, but I had to
admit she was a reasonably attractive lady. In fact, dressed as she was in a
thin white blouse, just-above-the-knee skirt, and two inch heels, she looked
downright hot.

        She looked at me, clutching my arm with a feminine hand. "Don't you see, Bob?
It works. The legend of the Gate of the World is true."

        "Gate of the World?" I asked to the confused nods of the rest of the class.

        "That's right, Bob," the woman said. "Do you remember some of the historical
points I brought up in class? Do you remember Abu Bakr?"

        "Yeah, I think so," I answered. "Wasn't he Mohammed's father-in-law? The one
who became the first caliph?"

        The woman beamed with pride. "Fine work, Bob. I'm glad you remembered. He was
also the man who conquered Arabia just two years after Mohammed's death. Then
after him, Omar - the second caliph - conquered much of the Middle East. But
there's a legend that says it wasn't that simple."

        We all watched with fascination. This woman had Professor Bordman's style down
pat. Every inflection and every movement reminded us of Professor Bordman. But
could it be possible? Certainly not! But there had been those swirling colors...

        "There's a legend," she continued, "that Abu Bakr actually failed to take
Arabia. The Moslem religion was a dying sect with most of its adherents fleeing
from the victors. There seemed to be no hope - until Ali ben Sharif came on the
scene. He was a bookbinder by trade but a sorcerer by avocation. And he was a
Moslem. So the story goes, he was devastated when Abu Bakr was defeated and
killed. So he gathered magic from as many sources as he could and stored them in
a book. The book is nothing more than the set of rules governing the magic. It's
sort of a combination magical talisman and owner's manual."

        "His goal was to find a way to change the world so that his faith could
triumph. But he had no clear idea of the forces he was playing with. Reality
could be changed, but it didn't always change exactly the way the spellcaster
might hope. Anyhow, he cast the first spell, causing reality to be rewritten.
When he had finished, Abu Bakr had magically become victorious, but at high
cost. For the Middle East was far different from what we know today."

        There was a fire in her eyes as she told the story. This was the Professor
Bordman I knew - just in a female body. She was obsessed with her tale, and
given its scope, I could understand why.

        "The Middle East Ali Ben Sharif knew was a verdant place," she continued
wistfully. "The desert wastes we know today didn't exist then. Perhaps that's
why Abu Bakr failed in his conquest of Arabia. He was up against a prosperous,
powerful foe. It took the wasting of the region to give him a chance at
victory."

        "You're saying he intentionally changed the Middle East into an arid wasteland
just so the Moslem conquest of Arabia could happen?" Nancy gasped.

        The new woman shook her head. "No, it wasn't intentional. According to the
legend, Ali had no idea the landscape would be changed. You see, he had done his
job too well. By gathering nearly all the magic of the world into one place, he
had created a force that used its own logic to grant a wish. He had gathered in
the key to the Gate of the World, a magical force said to have been created at
the beginning of time itself. The simpler the wish, the more latitude the
magical forces are given. For example, if you were to wish to be a
multimillionaire, the Gate of the World might kill off your parents, allowing
you to collect millions in insurance money. That would be the simplest solution.
But it might just as easily do it by changing your great-great grandfather into
the inventor of the automobile or something equally important."

        "In Ali's case, he asked for a Moslem victory, but he never thought about what
that might mean. The Gate of the World simply recognized that the easiest way to
assure a Moslem victory was to weaken their foes, and the easiest way to do that
was to reduce the wealth of the enemy's realm. That wasn't what Ali wanted. He
would have been content with a military victory against all odds. Ali, according
to the legends, went mad upon seeing the devastation he had brought to the
region and sought to destroy the book. He failed in that, obviously."

        I looked at the book, sitting on my desk where I had placed it. Could it be
that such an unassuming little thing could have such power? Professor Bordman
must have realized what I was thinking, for he told us, "The book is not what
causes the changes. It merely contains a key - a key to the Gate of the World.
You see, our current theories about the nature of reality are wrong. There are
not multiple realities as recent theories in physics suggest; there is only one
reality. It's like a balloon - when you poke your finger at a balloon, it pushes
out somewhere else. So when you use the book to open the Gate and make a wish to
change reality, other things may change as well - things you hadn't intended to
change."

        "Like your sex?" Lori asked.

        Professor Bordman nodded. "Exactly."

        "We should at least try to change you back," I suggested, turning back toward
my desk to get the book and...

        It was gone!

        I looked around the room and felt my heart sink as I saw Walt inching toward
the doorway, the book in his hands.

        "Walt, stop right there!"

        He did, but only for a moment. "You think you're so smart, don't you?" he
yelled at me. "All of you think you're better than me." He repeated the Arabic
phrase I had uttered. "Well, I wish you could know what I'm going to do with
this book. I wish I were sitting in my dorm room in my favorite chair right
now."

        And with that, he simply winked out of our sight and the world once more
swirled about us. Much more of that swirling and I was going to get motion
sickness.

        "Shit!" Dave yelled. "Now that little rat bastard has the power to change
reality and we can't stop him."

        "Worse yet," Lori commented, "we won't even know when he did it. We'll be part
of his new reality."

        "We'll be part of it," Professor Bordman agreed, "but we will know."

        We all looked at him, puzzled.

        "Remember what I just told you?" he asked. "Once the phrase is stated, the Gate
of the World is opened. Saying 'I wish' invokes the Gate. I'm sure he didn't
mean to give us any advantage, but when Mr. Dermott said he wished that we would
know what he was doing with the book, he invoked the power of the Gate. Now,
every time he uses it, we will be aware that it was used to change reality
around us."

        "But if that's the way it works," Nancy asked, "why did you need Bob to get you
into the classroom. You could have wished yourself here."

        Professor Bordman shook her head. "No, I couldn't. You see, I had just acquired
the book and was in the process of translating it. I'm not like you younger
people. I actually read the instruction manual before I try to operate a device.
The problem was that I didn't have the time I needed to learn everything. I had
a... shall we say... rival for the book. He knew of its power as well and was
just a few hours behind me in acquiring it from a rather clueless dealer in
antiquarian books and manuscripts. He followed me and was in a position to wrest
the book from me. I had to make my wish on the fly.

        "What I wished for was to be safely away from him and to remember any previous
realities. That is why I remember who I was before. Unfortunately, the way I
phrased the question caused me to be safely on a street corner in Tokyo and the
book to go somewhere else where you would find it but my nemesis would not."

        "This is getting too confusing," I groaned.

        "Yeah, and it's gonna get a whole lot worse if we don't get the book back from
that little weasel," Dave pointed out.

        "Maybe we can get him before he can make a wish against us," I suggested.

        "Be careful about that," Professor Bordman cautioned. "One the key phrase is
given, wishes can be made for up to an hour without repeating the words."

        "Let's just hope he doesn't figure that out," I replied grimly.

        The class hour was nearly over, and I didn't have another class for a couple of
hours. Neither did Nancy and Lori, so we got nominated to go try to get the book
back from Walter. I honestly don't know what we were thinking. Walter had in his
possession to most powerful artifact the world had probably ever known and we
were going to waltz over there and try to get it back as if it were just an
overdue library book.

        But it wasn't as if we really had any options. Walter - sniveling little
asshole that he was - had inadvertently wished that we would be aware of
whatever changes he made. That meant we were in danger of living in a world he
was molding - a world which might be constantly shifting about us. I thought of
the barren, oppressively hot deserts of the Middle East I had come to know in
the Army and tried to imagine what they might have looked like as lush, fertile
lands. If Ali with the best of intentions could have caused that ecological
nightmare to happen, what damage could Walter with his egocentric impulses
cause? I shuddered at the thought.

        And what changes had he already managed to make? He had used the key twice that
we knew about but the world had only swirled about once. It was probably because
he had made the two wishes so close together. Maybe he had continued to wish
once he got back to his dorm room.

        "Wait a minute," I told the others in the lobby of Walter's dorm. I plugged a
quarter into the slot of a newspaper machine and pulled out the morning addition
of the Kansas City Star.

        "What are you doing?" Nancy asked.

        "I we don't catch Walter right away, we may want to keep up on what he
accidentally changes. If we can get the key back, we may have to put the world
back together the way it was before. The paper might give us a clue about what
changes." I looked down at the headlines and sighed with relief. At least
nothing had changed yet. President McCain was still pushing his campaign reform
law. The Bob Vila murder trial was still going on, although I thought it was a
little tacky for Black and Decker to be sponsoring it on Court TV, even if the
murder weapon had been a Makita drill. Senator O. J. Simpson was being talked up
as a possible presidential candidate in 2004. Yep, everything was still normal.

        We walked up to Walter's room as if we owned the place. I'm sure it was all
bravado though. I know I didn't feel very confident knowing a creep like Walter
had the ability to change the world. Even so, I gave an authoritative knock on
his door and was surprised to hear him call out, "It's open!"

        Walter was, indeed, sitting in what had to be his favorite chair. A Marzz Barzz
CD was on in the background, and a recent copy of Playboy was on his lap. The
little bastard looked as if he had the world on a string. I suppose he really
did when I think about it. He grinned at us, and I suddenly felt like a mouse
cornered by a cat - or a rat in Walter's case.

        "Where's the book, Walter?" I asked without any preliminaries. I hoped my tone
sounded threatening, but if the truth were known, I was feeling very uneasy.
Walter had always knuckled under when I had used that tone with him. He knew I
was bigger and stronger than he was, but as I was soon to learn, that didn't
matter any more.

        "Oh? You mean this book?" He nonchalantly produced the book from under the
Playboy. Before any of us had time to react, he repeated the magic phrase,
followed by, "None of you can come any closer to me or leave the room until I
give you my permission!"

        Oh shit.

        Maybe he phrased it wrong, I thought hopefully, but I found I could not move
any closer to him. I suppose we had all thought of the power of the key as
relating primarily to earth-shaking events like wars. But there was nothing to
stop him from using it on a much smaller scale. I don't know what the Gate of
the World had done to make it impossible to reach him. Maybe personal force
fields were now possible. Or maybe he had the power of hypnosis. Whatever the
reason, we couldn't approach him any closer and we couldn't turn around to get
away.

        "Walter, you're a real shit!" Nancy spat.

        "Oh, I'm so disappointed that you feel that way," Walter said with mock
sadness. "Maybe you should reconsider." He mumbled the phrase once more. "Nancy,
you are a stunning girl, Chinese by birth..." He continued to rattle off his
requirements as Lori and I watched the world shift around us once more.

        When the shifting stopped, both of us gasped as we looked at the girl who stood
where Nancy had been moments before. If you looked really closely, you could
still see Nancy in the beautiful Oriental face. I always had thought that Nancy
could have been very attractive if she had just fixed herself up a bit. This
girl had done just that - and more. Her skin looked flawless, and the makeup she
wore made her look as if she had just stepped off the cover of a fashion
magazine. Her hair was long and straight, billowing over narrow, perfect
shoulders. As for her figure... well, there couldn't be anything in the Playboy
Walter had been looking at that was any better. She wore a tank top that was so
sheer and silky that I could easily see her large nipples through the jade green
fabric. And the white miniskirt she wore was so short and tight I knew she
wouldn't dare sit down in it. She was, of course, wearing heels - perhaps three
inches high which women called (I found out later) strappy sandals.

        The girl who had been Nancy looked down in disbelief at her slender hands
tipped with long, red nails. "What you do to me?" she cried in a singsong,
heavily accented voice.

        Walter's reply was preceded by a chilling laugh. "Do you think I'm a fool?" I
bit my tongue. Seeing what had happened to Nancy was enough to convince me that
I didn't really want to answer that question. "I knew some of you would try to
take back the book. So I made my wish. I wished that whoever came in that door
would be under my power for as long as you were in my room..."

        There was good news and bad news in what he said. The good news was that he
still didn't realize that repeating the key phrase wasn't necessary. The Gate of
Worlds would be open for a full hour after he opened it. The other good new was
that he had limited his wish to as long as we were in his room. In an effort to
be specific, he had unintentionally restrained his current power over us. Of
course, the bad news was that we were in his room, couldn't move, and Nancy was
suddenly Oriental... and he was turning his gaze to Lori.

        "Now as for you, I've always thought you were very attractive, Lori."

        "Th...thank you," she managed to stammer, fear in her eyes. I suspected her
fear was well-founded.

        "I have plans for you later, Lori," Walter said with a wicked leer. "But I
think we can make things even more interesting if there are two of you." He
repeated the phrase and made his wish.

        There was a brand new effect added to the swirling this time. Lori seemed to
break apart like an amoeba, and when the room settled down, there were two of
her. Both girls gasped and raised their hands to their own faces in perfect
harmony. A closer look at the two of them showed that there weren't just two
Loris. There were two significantly enhanced Loris - longer, shinier blonde
hair, bigger breasts, more pronounced lips, and sensational figures were all new
attributes. That isn't to say Lori wasn't attractive to begin with; she was. But
the new, improved Lori - or rather Loris - just had more of a good thing.

        "Lori, meet Tori," Walter laughed. "Now, which of you is which?"

        "I'm Lori!" each girl insisted at the same moment with the same gesture.

        Walter laughed even harder at the girls' confusion. I could imagine what had
really happened. Yes, Lori now had a twin, but her twin was really nothing more
than a duplicate of her. As a result, they had absolutely identical experiences
and would respond in exactly the same manner until something happened which
would detract from their common experience.

        "Now it's your turn, Bob." His voice was cold and deliberate. If I had been
able to move, I would have been charging for the door at full speed, but I
couldn't even quake with the fear I felt. I had always disliked Walter, but I
had never realized that in addition to being stupid and petulant, he was a
genuinely evil little man. I was certain whatever he had planned for me would be
downright terrible. I wasn't to be disappointed.

        I was beginning to realize that the Playboy on his lap had been more than a
prop to hide the book. Walter had been looking through the magazine, carefully
selecting new identities for us. I was sure if I had been able to move and look
at the magazine, I would have found an attractive Oriental girl and a set of
blonde twins somewhere in the glossy pages.

        And I had no illusions about what Walter had planned for me either. Whatever I
turned out to look like, I wasn't going to be mistaken for Brad Pitt. And what
had been unintentionally done to Professor Bordman was certainly proof that the
magic the book released respected none of the boundaries of gender.

        "I've always been partial to redheads," he mused as he pointed a finger at me.
"I think you should be one." Walter repeated the key phrase, then mumbled a long
description that would change me into a redhead - a female redhead of course.

        And I knew that that was what I was. I could feel from the sensations in my
body that not just the color of my hair was changing. The strange thing was that
this time, I didn't just see the swirling around me - I was a part of it. While
I could feel things changing throughout my body, I could see nothing but the
swirling colors. I wanted to scream or cry or at least curse Walter's name, but
none of it seemed possible.

        And then as quickly as it had begun, the swirling stopped. I looked down at
myself at once, relieved that I was still dressed as I had been before in a gray
and white Dykstra College sweatshirt and jeans. But wait! Why was the sweatshirt
pushing forward in those two places? I shook my head. Something tickled and a
lock of luxuriant red hair fell over my shoulder and into my line of sight.

        "Yeep!" Well, I didn't really say "yeep", but it must have sounded something
like that - sweet and high pitched.

        Lori, Tori and Nancy were all standing there with their pretty mouths wide
open, and Walter let loose with another of his shrill, evil laughs. He rose to
his feet, dropping the Playboy and the book from his lap. He bent over to pick
them up, muttering something in the process.

        I would have given a lot to have been able to grab the book, but he had made
his wish well and I was prohibited from touching him. Or maybe I should say I
thought he had made his wish well. Before he could reach the book, he awkwardly
stumbled and was suddenly sprawled out on the floor. Things were happening so
quickly and I was so disoriented that it took me a moment to realize Walt hadn't
stumbled at all - he had been pushed! And suddenly Dave was there, scooping up
the book.

        Walt looked up at Dave, fear in his eyes. He scramble quickly to his feet and
fled from the room. Dave seemed content to let him go since he had the book.
"Are you guys okay?" he asked.

        We all nodded - if you could call being twinned, changing race, or changing
gender okay.

        "How did you do that?" I asked Dave, hearing for the first time the new
contralto voice I now possessed.

        "I decided to cut class and help you guys out," he explained. "I was just about
to enter the room when I heard Walt tell you guys that he had wished to control
anyone who walked through his door. So I did a one-eighty and went outside.
Thank God he lives on the first floor and had a window open."

        "You should have seen him!" Nancy laughed, a faintly Oriental lilt in her
voice. "He sneaked in here while Walt was concentrating on you, Bob. Walt never
saw him coming."

        "So because you didn't come in through the door, he didn't have any control
over you," I surmised with a smile.

        "Yeah," Dave grinned. I felt suddenly uncomfortable as I realized he wasn't
looking me in the eye as he grinned. In defense, I folded my arms over my new
breasts. It wasn't the most comfortable posture, but I hoped it hid my new
assets somewhat.

        "Maybe we should undo the damage," I suggested. "I'm not anxious to look like
this any longer than I have to."

        "Not so fast," Dave said. "No telling what damage Walt has done to the world
already. We need to take the book back to Professor Bordman and let him change
things back."

        "But that would mean walking across campus like... like..." I couldn't even say
it. I just used my newly-refined hands to indicate my new body.

        "You look great!" Nancy teased. "It's a shame it's not fall. You'd be a
candidate for Homecoming Queen."

        "Thanks a lot," I growled. Well, I tried to make it sound like a growl anyhow.

        "Oh, don't worry," she laughed. "I live in this dorm, too. I'll get you some
clothes that fit a little better than those. Then we'll go over and see
Professor Bordman and get all of us changed back."

        "I still don't see why we can't do it now," I pouted. Okay, I'll admit it - I
didn't want to stay in a girl's body for a second longer than I had to.

        "I told you," Dave said patiently, as if explaining things to a petulant child.
"We don't know what else Walt changed just by accident. Remember what Ali did to
the Middle East?"

        "That was different," I argued in my sweet new voice. "He changed world
history. What Walt did was minor."

        To prove my point, I looked around for the newspaper I had dropped on the
floor. I bent over to pick it up, regretting my action at once. My new breasts
swayed uncontrolled as I bent over, and my ass pushed against my male jeans to
the point that I thought the seams would split. I must have given Dave quite a
show when I bent over as well.

        I knew when I saw the first headline that something was very wrong. The
headline read PRESIDENT CLINTON TO PUSH MEDICAL PLAN. The picture showed a woman
I had never seen before. She was blonde, not at all unattractive, and smiling.
The caption on the picture referred to President Hillary Clinton.

        "A woman president?" Dave commented over my shoulder. Two thoughts struck me.
The first was how much shorter I must be if Dave could read over my shoulder.
The second was, 'What was wrong with a woman president?' Jeez, I had only been
in a woman's body for five minutes and already I was thinking like a feminist.

        "I've heard of her," Tori and Lori said at the same moment. Then they looked at
each other and back at us, speaking once more in unison. "She was married to the
governor of Arkansas. She caught him playing around and divorced him a few years
ago." Both girls giggled at that.

        I seemed to remember something about that, too, but I was never much of a
political animal. As I remembered, her ex-husband had resigned after the divorce
and headed for Hollywood where he was producing movies. She had ended up married
to some obscure congressman from Georgia named something-rich. Apparently
things worked out a little differently for them in this reality. Behind our new
president in the picture was a silver-haired man who the caption said was her
husband, Senator Clinton.

        "But why did changing us have this much of an impact on the world?" I asked the
group.

        It was Dave who answered. "I remember back in high school I read a science
fiction novel by Isaac Asimov. It was called The End of Eternity. In it, time
travelers went around making what they called minimum necessary changes to
affect the future. I think that may be how the Gate of Worlds works. It just
leaves out the minimum requirement."

        "You mean we had to change presidents before I could be changed into a girl?
Surely something more minor than that would have caused the change."

        Dave shook his head. "No, not quite right. It didn't have to do it this way,
but it was one possibility it could select. Didn't you tell me once that your
dad was in Vietnam?"

        I nodded.

        "So let's say that something happened and president Kennedy didn't bring
everyone home in 1967 like we know he did. Maybe that meant your dad and your
mom met later and you were conceived later. You do look a little younger."

        Actually, I didn't know how I looked, and I wasn't anxious to find out. "So
that comes back to what I asked before. You mean something like that had to
happen before I could be a girl?"

        "No," Don replied. "At least not exactly. Let's say that there were thousands
and thousands of possible factors which might have meant you would have been a
girl instead of a boy. Unlike the people in Asimov's novel, the Gate of Worlds
doesn't have any way of determining which change would produce the least
disruption on the future and it doesn't care. It just selects one at random -
sort of like a poorly conceived computer program. My guess is that the Middle
East didn't have to become largely a wasteland just to allow the Moslems to win,
but that was the one the Gate selected at random, not caring about additional
consequences."

        "So that means changing all of us back the way we were might be dangerous,"
Nancy concluded slowly. "Maybe we should just stay this way. I don't really mind
being Chinese."

        "And I kind of like the idea of having a twin," Tori and Lori chorused.

        "Now wait just a minute!" I broke in, just a little hysterical. "You can't be
serious. I have no intention of being... like this for the rest of my life. I'm
a guy for God's sake."

        "Hey, you could do a lot worse," Nancy argued. "You ought to look at yourself
in the mirror. You look like a younger version of Geena Davis. You could have
any guy you wanted."

        "I DON'T WANT ANY GUY!" I yelled.

        "Oops," Nancy mumbled.

        "Look," Dave said, taking charge. I suppose that was because he was the only
guy. Sniff. "Let's just get this book back to Professor Bordman. We can decide
what to do with it then."

        We all nodded in agreement. As much as I wanted to be changed back, I realized
it was probably the best solution. After all, if somebody like that Bill Clinton
guy could go from being a Hollywood mogul to a US Senator, what would changing
me back do? Maybe make that old actor Ronald Reagan President or something? I
read someplace that he once ran unsuccessfully for governor in California.

        I did talk everyone into stopping by my dorm room first. Since Walt hadn't
changed my clothes when he changed my body, I wanted to go to my room and find
something that fit a little better. My sneakers were now about four sizes too
large, causing me to stumble with every step, and my pants were several inches
too long as well. Unless I found something else to wear, I would probably fall
and break my new face. Of course, that would at least make it less cute...

        And I must be a cutie, I thought grimly to myself as we walked down the hall to
my room. How did I know? Well, because every guy we passed in the hall looked me
over with undisguised relish. Maybe it was because my new breasts were flopping
about freely. Even under the sweatshirt I wore, they could be seen clearly. That
and the fact that I felt as if I had sacks of flour attached to my chest led me
to believe Walt had given me what the guys in my old Army unit would have called
class one hooters. Damn you, Walt, I thought, I'll get you for this.

        I only hoped that my roommate wasn't there. It would be hard to explain... But
then I realized since I was now a girl, I probably had a different roommate.
Co-ed dorms were one thing and coed rooms quite another.

        I didn't know whether to sigh in relief of cry out in frustration as I entered
my room - and yes, it was my room. There was a picture of my parents that I had
always kept on my desk as well as a few other personal mementos that had crossed
over into this new life of mine. But the room was very obviously a girl's room.
Frilly bedspreads, strewn undies, and "cute" little items around the room all
said "GIRL" in large block letters.

        "Hey, that's my blouse!" Nancy exclaimed, looking at a garment on one of the
beds. "And all my stuff is here. But I roomed with Lori."

        "You must room with Bobbie now," Lori and Tori said together. "We probably room
together now." They giggled again.

        "Don't call me Bobbie!" I muttered, holding up a bra with disgust. The little
tag on it said 36C. Now, as a former guy, I didn't have a real solid
understanding of bra sizes, but I had read enough men's magazines to know that
the bra was too big for Nancy. That meant it was mine.

        "Actually, her name isn't Bobbie," one of the twins said, looking through what
must have been my purse. That was a dual relief. First, I hated the name Bobbie
- or Roberta for that matter. And second, it was good to hear one of the twins
speaking by herself. I suspected that as their life experiences changed, they
would develop different personalities and be less likely to chorus their
replies.

        "Okay," I sighed, "so who am I?"

        "According to your driver's license, you're Ashley Sue Kramer now," Nancy
replied. "And you're twenty-two, by the way. Didn't you tell me once you were
twenty-six?"

        Well, I supposed if I had to have a girl's name, there were worse ones than
Ashley. In fact, it could even be a man's name I consoled myself. Remember
Scarlet O'Hara and "Oh, Ashley!"? And I did reclaim four years of life.

        "Okay, 'Ashley,'" Dave said impatiently. "You'd better get changed so we can
get this book back to Professor Bordman."

        I folded my arms as best I could under my breasts. "You don't expect me to get
changed with you in the room, do you?"

        Dave looked a little stricken. "Oh... well, I thought... I mean... uh... I'll
just be right outside if you need me."

        I actually had to laugh as the door closed behind him. I tried to ignore the
fact that the laugh came out as a feminine giggle. The twins and Nancy had
joined in the laughter, and in a strange way, I felt a warm feeling of
friendship with the girls.

        It was actually a nice feeling when I thought about it. Since as a guy I was a
bit older than most of the other residents in the dorm, I had never developed
any good friends. In fact, my classmates in Professor Bordman's class were
probably the best friends I had on campus, and they were more the nature of
acquaintances rather than friends. But sharing a funny moment with Nancy and the
twins had been a moment of true friendship. Maybe girls were just more sensitive
to that sort of...

        But wait a minute! I wasn't a girl. I mean, I was but I wasn't. I mean... oh
hell! You know what I mean.

        "Let's see if we can find some panties to match this bra," Nancy told the
twins.

        "Now wait a minute!" I practically yelled. "I just want to put on some pants
that I don't trip over. I don't want a bra."

        Nancy twirled the bra in her hand. "Ashley, in case you didn't notice, you have
an impressive pair of breasts now. And even if you haven't noticed, the boys
will. If you don't restrain those, you'll have the boys following you all over
campus."

        I could feel the blood rush out of my face at the mental picture of just that.
Reluctantly, I stripped off my sweatshirt and accepted the bra. I tried not to
look down as I wrestled with the bra, but it was impossible to ignore what were
now on my chest. The cool air had caused my nipples to rise a little, and both
breasts moved around as if fighting the restraint of the bra cups. One of the
twins attached the bra hooks, so I didn't have to wrestle with them - thank God.

        "Here we go," Nancy said, holding up a pair of panties which, I had to admit,
did at least match the cream color of the bra.

        "Do I have to?" I whined.

        Three feminine but firm nods told me I wasn't going to be given a choice. Like
it or not, I was now their very own Barbie doll to dress as they saw fit.

        At least the girls were gentle with me. I balked at shorts so they let me wear
jeans. However, I had been expecting the loose, comfortable jeans I had enjoyed
as a man. Apparently as Ashley, style was more important to me than comfort.
Even when Tori picked the loosest pair of jeans in my closet, I thought I would
be cut in half just buttoning them.

        For a top, they let me go with a pastel blue T-shirt. There was nothing
particularly feminine about it - if I discounted the color, I thought. I thought
wrong. The shirt had a wide, plunging neckline that exposed the tops of my new
breasts. At least I nixed any jewelry, other than a delicate little watch with
numbers so small I thought I would need a magnifying glass to read them.

        "Okay," Nancy announced. "Now the makeup and we'll - "

        "Uh-uh!" I said emphatically. "No makeup - no way!"

        They all set out to convince me I'd look stranger without makeup than with, but
I was having none of it. I think they were actually considering holding me down
to apply lipstick when the phone rang.

        If I had thought about it, I would have just let it ring. After all, given my
new sex, it could have been some boy calling up to ask me out, and that was the
last thing I wanted. But like Pavlov's dog, we're all conditioned to answer a
ringing phone. I grabbed for it, nearly breaking an unexpectedly long nail in
the process.

        "Hello?"

        "Ashley? Is that you, dear?"

        Ashley? Oh, that's me, I realized. But who was that on the phone. It was a
woman's voice and it sounded somewhat familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.
"Who..." I started to ask.

        "Ashley?" the voice said. "Is everything all right? It's your mother."

        But my mother was dead. I almost blurted that out, but I caught myself just in
time. "Uh... yeah, Mom," I managed. "I'm fine. It's just some of the girls are
here in my room and..."

        "I understand," she laughed. "I was a girl in college once, too. I won't keep
you long. Your father and I just wanted to make sure you still wanted us to come
down Saturday and see you."

        Father? Dad was alive, too? Did I want to see them? Did I want to see them?
"Uh... sure. When will you be here?" I tried to keep my voice calm, but my heart
was soaring. My parents hadn't died! They were alive!

        "I thought about noon," Mom said. "Your father has an old friend he wants to
see - Professor Wamsley over in the English Department. I suspect they'll want
to talk shop for a while so we can go shopping."

        Shopping sounded like a waste of time, but my Mom... she was alive. And Dad...

        "Ashley?"

        "Oh... sure. Noon's fine, Mom."

        "See you then, dear. We love you."

        As the phone went dead, I put the receiver down gently. I was too stunned to
say anything. Nancy looked alarmed and rushed over to the bed where I was
sitting and put an arm around me. "Bob... er... Ashley, what's wrong?"

        "Wrong?" I asked stupidly.

        "You're crying," she pointed out.

        I put a delicate hand up to my eye and brushed away a tear. "Yeah...
I guess I am."

        Then my lip was quivering. My mind flashed back to when I was twelve. I
remembered the principal coming into our classroom at school. Somehow, I knew he
had come for me. The look on his face was grim, and when he whispered something
to my teacher and she looked right at me with shock and surprise, I knew what
had happened.

        I had been close to my parents - as close as only children often are. Without
siblings, parents are the only immediate family a child knows. I had cried at
the funeral. I tried not to, and my uncle had frowned at me and told me that
boys weren't supposed to cry. But I couldn't help it. I couldn't help it than
and I couldn't help it now. At least now I wasn't a boy. I think even my uncle
might allow that a girl could cry.

        I explained to the others between sobs why I was crying, and that the tears I
spilled were tears of joy. My parents were alive! The girls all hugged me, and
before I knew it, we were all crying together. I think it was the best any of us
had felt since the whole mess with the book started. Jeez, it was weird. As a
man, I never thought crying could make you feel good. Now it seemed as a girl
crying felt natural and sometimes even good.

        "Now we all have to fix our makeup," Nancy said at last. Tori and Lori chimed
in in agreement, but fortunately they didn't say it at the same moment. "You
really need to do something, Ashley. Your face is all puffy now."

        "Okay," I sighed, basking in the warmth of the knowledge that my parents were
still alive. I was no longer in a mood to argue with them. If I was going to cry
like a girl, I might as well look like one. "I'll go quietly. Just take it easy
on that stuff, okay?"

        When they had finished with me, I was already beginning to regret my decision.
All three girls bounced around in excitement, looking for just the right product
to feminize me even further. Foundation, powder, lipstick, and eye shadow were
passed back and forth and applied by deft hands. Now I knew how a canvas felt.
It was all in good fun, but they were the only ones having the fun. At last
Nancy pronounced, "There!" And with that, they led me to a mirror.

        I had intentionally avoided looking at my new body until now. The touch of long
hair on my neck and the side of my face and its weight lying on my shoulders had
been enough to tell me it was quite long, thank you very much. And I had caught
a glimpse of red when a lock of that hair had swirled past my face. But nothing
had prepared me for the lush red mane I now possessed, spreading out from my
face like flames.

        As for the face itself, there was no denying that I was very attractive. Oh,
the face wasn't perfect with its prominent freckles and its slightly sharp nose,
but the texture of the skin was smooth and creamy - partially I knew the work of
makeup but partially natural. And my eyes were a deep green, wide and round
enough to have some describe them as bedroom eyes.

        As for my body... well, I certainly knew I had breasts. I had tried to avoid
looking down at them, but I had been able to feel them sway and even caught a
glimpse of them when I was fitted with a bra. But I swear they were somehow
sexier and more prominent when nestled inside the scoop neck T-shirt. I hadn't
realized it would have such a revealing neckline when I agreed to wear it.

        My waist was narrow - as prominent in its narrowness as my breasts were in
their own way. And my hips were pleasantly wide and feminine. No wonder I had
felt them move strangely as I had walked. And the jeans had done absolutely
nothing to disguise what I now was. I looked as sexy in those jeans as I would
have in a tight miniskirt.

        In short, I was one hot chick... and I didn't like it one little bit.

        "Ooooh, you look cool!" Tori and Lori said together.

        "Great," I sighed. "The universe is unraveling around us and you guys have
stopped to make a fashion statement."

        That really bothered me. It was completely out of character for both of the
girls - well, all three of the girls now. Nancy never used to give one whit how
she looked. She often showed up at class with her hair in a rat's nest and
little or no makeup. As for clothes, she could have cared less. Now, she had
participated in my frocking and had changed into another miniskirt and was
redoing her makeup while Tori and Lori did some last minute fussing with me.

        And then there were the new twins. Lori had always looked a little like a bimbo
but had in reality been a serious student. Reality. It's funny I should use that
word. This was reality now, and in it, Lori had a twin. And it was almost as if
the brains that had served one girl very well had been evenly distributed
between the two of them. The result was that they giggled a lot and seemed to be
rapidly becoming bimbos. Or maybe not. It was possible that like Nancy, they had
just discovered their ultra-feminine side.

        So why hadn't I been affected? Or had I been? I though back on my male life.
All the memories seemed to be intact. I didn't seem to have any memories of
playing with dolls or being a cheerleader or losing my virginity in some guy's
back seat. And for that matter, I wasn't attracted to guys - thank God.

        On the other hand, my movements seemed a bit more fluid. I noticed that I
seemed to walk like a woman, although that could be because my hips were shaped
differently now. And when I looked in the mirror and brushed some of my long red
hair back, the gesture was distinctly feminine.

        Of course Dave had barged in on Walt right after he had transformed me. I had a
feeling Walt had planned on making additional changes to us while we were in his
power. After all, if he could change Nancy into an Oriental, twin Lori, and
change my sex, it would have been child's play for him to change our clothing
and our attitudes. I shuddered as I thought of what might have happened if Dave
hadn't gotten the book. By now, I could be some giggling little trollop in
spangles (and not much else) sucking on Walt's dick.

        And speaking of Dave, he was still waiting for us in the hall. He looked at his
watch, growling at the twins, "Well, it's about time. I thought you guys..." His
voice trailed off when he saw me. "Bob?"

        "It's Ashley now, remember?" Nancy told him as she followed me out of the room.

        "Oh... yeah."

        And that was the last thing Dave said as we walked back to Professor Bordman's
classroom. He contented himself to walk behind us, and I could feel his stare
burning right through the fabric of my jeans. I wanted to turn and yell at the
guy, reminding him that I was just as male as he was - sort of. But I couldn't
do that, could I? After all, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was call
attention to myself. From the looks we were already getting from passing guys, I
had considerably more attention than I wanted already.

        Back in the classroom, the rest of the gang was there. I was surprised to see
both Jorge and Wyoming Tom there. They had begged off on our quest, citing
classes they had to attend. Or at least Jorge had begged off. Wyoming Tom,
wordless as always, had just shaken his head and left. Maybe he had a fitting
for a gown or something. But now they were there, and both of them looked very
worried.

        "You got the book!" Professor Bordman exclaimed, turning away from Wyoming Tom
and Jorge. "Wonderful. Now we can start to undo some of the damage." He didn't
seem particularly surprised by our appearance, although it took him a moment to
sort out which twin was which - as if it mattered. I questioned him on that.

        "I'm not at all surprised," he answered. "When Walt made that offhand wish as
he was leaving - the one about wishing we all could know what he did with the
book - he made it so we would be aware of every change he made. When all of you
showed up, it was fairly obvious who was who."

        "Even me?" I asked.

        "Sure," she said with a grin. "You look a little uncomfortable. I figured you
had to be Bob Kramer."

        "Okay," Jorge broke in nervously with his accented English. "Let's discuss this
later. We have much to correct."

        "Jorge no longer goes to school here," Professor Bordman explained. "I don't
think Walt did it on purpose, but Jorge is now a refugee working as a custodian
here. His green card is forged, by the way."

        "Collateral damage," I commented. When everyone looked blank, I explained,
"It's an Army term. It means when you strike a target, sometimes you also hit
something you didn't set out to hit."

        "That's an appropriate analogy," Professor Bordman observed. "Whatever Walt
changed created a whole series of unwanted changes."

        I handed him the newspaper. "And you don't know the half of it."

        "My God! A woman president?" she muttered. She said it with such disdain that I
had to grin. She seemed to have forgotten the fact that she was now a woman. I
certainly wished I could. "Maybe we should look carefully at the paper before we
change everything back."

        "That's an excellent idea," Dave said with a nod.

        "Oh no," I said, throwing a nasty look at both of them. "I don't plan to look
like this any longer than I have to. All we need to do is word a wish that
changes everything back to the way it was just before Walt stole the book. Then
everything should revert to normal."

        Professor Bordman looked a little disappointed. I think she wanted to study the
book in typical professorial fashion before changing everything back to normal.
Then I remembered that she had experienced a sex change as well - one that
presumably had saved her life.

        "All right," she sighed. "I suppose we should do that. Besides, from what our
friend Tom here just showed me, it's probably for the best."

        I looked questioningly at Wyoming Tom. In reply, he handed me an
official-looking notice. I nearly gasped as I read it. Apparently Wyoming (which
really was his home state as it turned out) had a law on the books now that made
crossdressing a state crime, punishable by imprisonment. Wyoming Tom was
believed to have fled the state to escape prosecution.

        "But this won't hold up in any court in the nation," I argued as I handed the
notice back to him.

        "Not in our reality," Professor Bordman agreed. "But remember, this is a
different reality. For all we know, it may depend upon an entirely different set
of rules. After all, there were people in our own reality who would have been
happy to support such a law - and worse!"

        "Then let's get back to the reality we knew," I urged.

        "I'm not sure that's a good idea," Dave interjected.

        I turned to face him, my mouth open. "What are you talking about? You don't
want to go back to the real world - to our world?"

        "I just mean we don't know what the key might do if we try to change things
back the way they were," Dave explained. "We may set up a time loop or
something. What if the key sets everything back just the way it was and then
just starts it all over again?"

        "We'd know it and stop it," I replied smugly.

        Dave shook his head. "No we wouldn't. We just remember Walt's wishes. We'd be
taking a big chance."

        "I'm willing to take that chance to get rid of these," I assured him, pointing
at my breasts.

        "Wait a minute!" Nancy broke in. "Aren't you forgetting something, Ashley?"

        "What?" I grimaced. The sooner I no longer had to answer to that name, the
better I was going to like it.

        "Your parents," she explained. "If we go back to our old reality, they'll be
dead."

        That brought me up short. I hadn't really considered that. In this here and
now, they were alive, but if we went back to our reality, they would be dead.
They had been gone from me so long I really didn't miss them, though. Maybe if I
had had the chance to meet with them, I might have felt differently. But it
would be nice to have them back...

        "No," I said slowly. "It's just too dangerous. We don't have the right to
change reality this way. My parents may have lived in this world, but how many
others died unnecessarily? We have to change things back." I suddenly realized
my voice was trembling, and there was a little moisture in my eyes. But I knew
what I had said was right. By saving my parents, we might do irreparable harm to
the world. It just wasn't worth the risk.

        "You're sure?" Professor Bordman pressed.

        "Just do it, damn it!" I told her, turning away so she wouldn't see my tears.

        Without further discussion, she uttered the words that would invoke the power
contained in the book. I braced myself as she uttered the wish to change things
back to the way they were before Walt grabbed the book. It was slow in happening
this time. Maybe there was so much that had to be changed that it was taking
longer to happen. I should have felt something, I thought, to indicate that my
body was changing back to male.

        But there was nothing.

        Nada.

        Zip.

        "What went wrong?" Dave asked as we all looked around at each other, noting
that absolutely nothing had changed.

        "I don't know," Professor Bordman said slowly. "I don't understand."

        "Always before, a man gave the wish," I pointed out. "Maybe a woman can't use
the Gate."

        "That is possible," Professor Bordman agreed. "I didn't see anything about it
in the rules, but the Moslem world is very sexist about such things. It could be
that the sex of the user was implied."

        "Then let me try," Jorge offered, accepting the book from the Professor. He
repeated the phrase and the wish, and again nothing happened.

        "Damn!" I muttered.

        "Wait a minute!" Lori - or was it Tori? - said. "I just remembered something."
I had the sudden unkind thought that if Lori and Tori continued their downward
intellectual spiral, it wouldn't be long until neither of the girls remembered
much of anything. They hadn't even seemed to realize that the use of the Gate
would have meant they would be merged back into one person again. Talk about
your split personalities!

        "What is it, Lori?" Dave asked.

        "No, I'm Tori," she corrected him. Then, after a blank stare, she added, "Or am
I?" She shrugged to herself. I would say that she was losing IQ points as I
watched. I wondered what I was losing.

        "So what is it, Tori?" I asked in exasperation.

        "Oh! Well, Walt said something right after he changed you, Ashley. Do you
remember when he dropped the book?"

        I nodded. That was just before Dave ambushed him.

        "Well," Tori continued, "he said something kind of like 'I wish I didn't have
to hold on to this damned book just to make a wish...'"

        Professor Bordman's eyes got wide. Dave just groaned I think I said something
like, "Oh shit!" Everyone else looked a little puzzled. "What's wrong?" Jorge
asked.

        "The wishing power has left the book," I explained. "Thanks to Walt's wish,
it's not the key to the Gate anymore."

        "Then what is?" Nancy asked in her lilting Chinese voice.

        "It could be anything," Professor Bordman explained. It could have transferred
to his clothing or the chair he was sitting in. My guess is that it was an
article of clothing or perhaps his watch. The only way to stop him will be to
find him and determine what object now holds the key."

        "Then he can still wish for everything and the book is useless," Dave muttered.

        "Yeah," I agreed. Then a little grin formed on my lips. "But I'll bet he
doesn't know it."

        I think everyone said, "What?" at exactly the same moment.

        "Look," I explained. "I was there when he made that wish, but it wasn't like a
pronounced wish. It was more like an idle thought, like you might say 'I wish I
had a pizza' when you were hungry. You don't really expect a pizza to pop out of
thin air, but you say it anyway."

        "Yeah," Nancy said. "But I wonder how long it will take the little prick to
realize his wishes are still coming true. When he does, he'll finish us up for
sure."

        "We need to keep checking the paper," Dave suggested. "Each of us should take
part of it and become familiar with what's in it. If it changes, we'll know Walt
realizes he had the power again."

        "But won't we feel the swirling and all?" I asked.

        "Not necessarily," Professor Bordman replied. "I think you have to be close to
the key to really feel it. The changes in reality are like an earthquake.
They're felt only if there is sufficient magnitude and they aren't too distant.
When you were all changed, we knew it because Walt wanted us to know it - and he
had inadvertently made some major changes. If he uses his power casually, we
might not even notice. Your example of the pizza, Ashley, is a good one. Say he
absently wishes for a pizza. A delivery boy might accidentally deliver a pizza
to wherever he is now and he wouldn't associate it with the power to wish. And
the change to reality is so minor, we might not even feel it."

        "But why didn't we feel it when Walt transferred the power out of the book?" I
asked.

        "Simple," Professor Bordman answered. "Moving the key is not quite the same as
changing reality. Think of your computer for a moment. If you're typing a letter
and change the font, nothing happens on the screen until you make the next
keystroke."

        "So by changing the location of the key, Walter just moved it without changing
reality," Dave surmised.

        "Exactly."

        I had to sit down. My head hurt. I suppose I was feeling just a little sorry
for myself. Sure, Lori had a new sister, Nancy was Chinese, Jorge was a
custodian, and Wyoming Tom was a wanted fugitive, but damn it all, I was the
only one who got his sex changed! I didn't want to be a girl. There were a lot
of things I wanted to do with my life, and doing them as a girl was a crock. I
wished that I could accept it the way Professor Bordman had. She didn't seem to
care one way or the other. Maybe that's the way scholars are. As for me, it
sucked.

        To make matters worse, it might not be over. There was a very good possibility
that Walt would realize he still had the power to change reality and would use
it to make our lives miserable. It was like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
First, I get changed into a girl, and the next thing I might know, I'd be a
stripper doing lap dances for a bunch of horny guys - with Walt leading them on
with catcalls.

        But I suppose there was nothing to do but what Professor Bordman had suggested.
First, we'd have to figure out where Walt was. Then, we'd have to figure out
what object now contained the key to the Gate of the World. But that wasn't all
we had to do. Then, we'd have to steal it from him and change things back. Man
oh man, I wasn't looking forward to the next few days.

        We each decided there was nothing more to be done that day. Dave had
volunteered to help Professor Bordman try to find out where Walt had run off to,
and the rest of us decided to get our own copies of the Kansas City Star so we
could note any shifts in reality.

        Nancy and I went back to the room we now shared. The first thing I did was to
spread the paper open on my desk. The first thing Nancy did was start primping
in the mirror.

        "Have you noticed how obsessed you've become with your appearance?" I asked
her. The question was a little harsh, but frankly, her constant preening was
starting to get on my nerves. If this kept up, pretty soon she'd want me to go
on double dates with her.

        "So what's wrong with looking good?" she returned. "You know, you could use a
touchup on your lipstick, dear."

        I mentally cringed. "I didn't mean to dis you," I said, backing down just a
little. "But have you noticed how much you've changed mentally?"

        She frowned. "I haven't changed. I'd be aware of it if I had."

        I shook my head. "Not entirely. Walt had something in mind for us when he
changed us. He didn't just wish us to look like this. He created something like
a macro and invoked it when we were in the room. He wanted us to be something
out of that Playboy he was reading."

        "So you're saying he made me more aware of my appearance than I had been before
just because of some bimbo model featured in Playboy?"

        "Yep," I nodded. "Let's face it, Nancy, you were always an attractive girl, but
you didn't seem to worry about fixing yourself up much."

        She thought about that for a moment, gazing at her image in the mirror.
Finally, she said slowly, "I see what you mean. Now that you mention it, I'm
aware of it, but it still seems right to look good. Oh God, Ashley, this means
Walt can play with our minds as well as our bodies and we can't stop him."

        I had thought the same thing. And I knew I wasn't immune. Probably the only
reason I wasn't primping in front of the mirror with Nancy was that I had so
much more to assimilate with the change of sex and all. I already noted that my
gestures and movements were becoming much more feminine. And on the walk back to
our room, I had even caught myself staring at some guy's buns. My suspicion was
that Walt had made all of us receptive to feminine thoughts and manners - as
defined by his Playboy. Hi, I'm Ashley. I like wildflowers and kittens, and I'm
turned off by guys who don't wear aftershave. When I get out of cosmetology
school, I want to work for world peace.

        Oh shit.

        We had to find Walt. We just had to. I didn't want to be a girl at all, and I
certainly didn't want to degenerate into Walt's idea of a girl. The sexually
repressed little weenie would have all of us acting like girls in a late night
movie on Cinemax if we didn't stop him. In desperation for something to do, I
began to study the paper. I had to be aware the moment reality shifted seriously
again. It would mean that Walt had discovered that he still had the key to the
Gate of the World.

        Frankly, most of the paper was pretty boring once you got past the national
news and this President Clinton person. The world might have changed some, but
most of the paper was still devoted to vacuous news just as it had been in our
own reality. A bunch of washed-up actors like Jack Nicholson and Angelina Jolie
were doing a movie version of the Love Boat. Wilford Brimley was going to play
the captain. Fred Durst of Limp Bizkit had had a nervous breakdown and claimed
on Entertainment Tonight that he was shallow and lacked talent. I had to agree.
There was even an article that said Sandra Bullock was going to star as a pirate
captain. The script was based on a true incident. Hell, I didn't even know there
were any pirate girls.

        Nancy was getting restless as I perused the paper. She wanted to go out and
party. Great - just what I needed, a roommate who now wanted to be the life of
the party. I finally talked her out of it, but only with the promise that she
could work on my hair and makeup. "It'll be fun!" she giggled. Somehow, I didn't
think so.

        I suppose I should be grateful to Nancy for what she did for me. Starting that
day, she was my tutor in all things female. Maybe it was Walt's spell that gave
her the feminine grooming skills, or maybe she had them all along and just
didn't care about them. Whatever the reason, she was a wellspring of information
that I would need if I was going to be a girl.

        Of course, I had no desire to remain a girl forever, but I had to acknowledge
that it was a possibility. Unless we could snatch the power to the key back from
Walt, I was in skirts and heels forever. That meant I would have to understand
makeup and hairstyles and the whole enchilada.

        Actually, I managed to get through the week pretty well. Being a girl was
becoming more and more natural to be all the time. It was a little tough the
first. I wasn't used to all the attention I would get as Ashley. Girls in
classes were much more friendly to me. I guess it was because I was one of them
now. Boys, on the other hand, were much, much more friendly. I guess it was
because I wasn't one of them now.

        It was without a doubt the strangest week of my life. I found that girls and
boys were really very different, and I don't mean that in the obvious way. As a
girl, I was smaller and weaker than I had been since being a boy in junior high.
Yet I seemed to have a power over larger, stronger men that just couldn't be
explained - it had to be experienced. When Bob had walked into a classroom, no
one usually noticed except the people I sat next to. When Ashley walked into the
classroom, everyone seemed to notice. Girls would smile and say, "Hi, Ash." Boys
would follow me with their eyes, begging me to notice them. And all because my
butt swayed seductively - if unintentionally - when I walked.

        I can't say that my first week as a girl was necessarily unpleasant. Once I
managed to get used to applying makeup and coordinating my clothes, it wasn't
too hard. About the clothes thing though, I had a hard time understanding why
girls found it necessary to color coordinate their bras and panties. I mean, who
else was going to know? As a guy, I thought my T-shirt and boxers were a match
if they were both clean. Nancy insisted, though, so I made the effort.

        With classes and learning to be a girl, I didn't have much time to think about
Walt. Frankly, with each passing day I got less worried about him. While we all
make idle wishes in our minds, we don't vocalize many of them. Walt might never
discover he still had the power. If the key had transferred into something like
his shirt, it might be lying all wadded up on the floor of his closet now.

        Unfortunately, in spite of Professor Bordman and Dave's best efforts, Walt
seemed to have disappeared. We suspected that he feared that since we now had
the book, we also had the power to even the score with him. I admit that
conjured up a few fantasies of revenge. In my mind I kept seeing Walt as a dumpy
girl still wearing his geeky glasses as she paraded around in a bikini two sizes
too small.

        One thing did worry me though - my Saturday meeting with my parents. Obviously,
I wanted to see them again. But since I hadn't seen them since I was a child, I
really didn't know the people they had now become. Obviously, they knew me, and
from my phone conversation with my mother, I believed we probably had a good
relationship. But they would have memories as a girl, and they would have also
known me long after I had lost them to a traffic accident many years before. How
should I act around them? What did I usually call them? Where did we live?

        Well, that last question I managed to answer for myself. After the death of my
parents, I had left Kansas where we had lived and moved to my uncle's home in
Illinois. Rummaging around in my desk, I found an address book. Now it seemed my
parents were living in Kansas City just a couple of hours away. That explained
their day trip to visit me. In this reality, they probably did it often. I noted
the address was in a nice area of the city, so apparently they - or maybe I
should say we - were doing well. My guess was that they were paying my tuition
now instead of my Army tuition benefits.

        By rummaging through some letters they had written to the new me, I found they
were far better off than they had been when I was a child. Apparently my father
had a better teaching job as a full professor at William Jewel College and had
written a couple of reasonably successful novels. I really didn't know how to
react to them. For all practical purposes, they were total strangers.

        Nancy was a big help, though. She told me lots of stories about growing up as a
girl with her parents. She also advised me to smile a lot and let them know how
happy I was here at Dykstra. That way, they'd be less worried, and worried
parents tend to ask penetrating questions I might have trouble answering.

        Saturday finally rolled around. I had made it though an entire week of classes
as a girl. I won't say I exactly liked it, but I found I was able to cope with
it fairly well. I did manage to turn down three potential dates for the weekend.
I'd look at the hopeful boy and sigh, "I can't my parents are going to be in
town." It was the perfect excuse. The only problem is that a couple of the boys
actually registered in my mind as being cute.

        But my parents were, indeed, coming. I was on pins and needles as Nancy worked
on me to get me ready to meet them. She was humming along to her favorite CD, a
compilation of duets featuring Whitney Stubbs and Bob Mould. She played it so
often I was starting to feel it running through my head all day. Other than
that, Nancy was proving to be a pretty good roommate.

        "We don't want you to look too sexy," she said as she fussed with my hair.
"Parents get a little crazy when their daughters start looking too hot. I'm
going for the peaches and cream look. With your light skin and red hair, that's
easy. And remember, when you touch up your makeup, don't apply too much
lipstick. Be subtle."

        Her cautions were unnecessary. I would most certainly go light with the
lipstick. In fact, if I had my way about it, I wouldn't have bothered to wear it
at all. I still hadn't gotten used to the taste of it. I only hoped we'd be able
to find Walt and get ourselves back to normal before I actually did get used to
the taste of the stuff.

        It was an unusually cool spring day, so Nancy had suggested a gray turtleneck,
plaid skirt and gray tights for me - and fortunately flats. I was still having a
little trouble walking right in heels. Along with the subtle makeup which
emphasized my little girl freckles and my red hair she had gathered into a long
loose ponytail, I thought I had affected that sweet schoolgirl look - just the
right look for meeting parents I barely remembered.

        "Oh Ashley, you look lovely!" my mother gushed when she saw me at the door. So
we must have gotten the right look, I thought with relief. She rushed to me and
hugged me. I practically melted in her arms as childhood memories of the mother
I had lost flooded back as if they had been bottled up waiting for this moment.
I squeezed my eyes, trying to hold back unbidden tears. Dear God, I had my
parents again. How many times as a young boy had I lay awaked on my attic bed at
my uncle's house praying for this moment? I just hadn't expected to be a girl
when it happened.

        Mother held me back. "Ashley - you're crying. Is there something wrong?"

        "No," I managed to say just before another sob hit me as I saw my father
standing in the doorway. "I'm...I'm just glad to see you."

        "Well, we're glad to see you, too," she laughed, "but you act as if we've just
come here from the dark side of the Moon."

        No, I thought to myself. From my perspective, they had come much further than
that.

        My father looked at me with parental concern. He had aged a little more than my
mother, it seemed. But I supposed my mother was using the magic of hair coloring
and makeup while my father was content to let his hair recede and go gray. "It
isn't a boy, is it?"

        "What? Oh, no. I'm just happy, that's all."

        My father sighed. "I guess I'll never understand you women. You cry when you're
happy."

        Yes, we do.

        I had a wonderful day with my parents. They took me shopping, and although I
would have liked to have ducked out like Dad did and find a TV to catch part of
a basketball game. Oh, officially he had gone to look up an old friend, but it
turned out they met in a bar, had a beer, and watched a game together. I was
going to miss male bonding. Part of me wished I could have been there in that
bar with him.

        I still managed to have fun shopping with Mom though. I began to realize that
women use shopping to bond much the way men bond while doing things like
watching sports together. And I suppose shopping is more practical than sports
in a way. After all, women have so many more choices of what to wear that it's
probably necessary that they - we - shop more. I was grateful that Nancy had
spent so much time teaching me about women's clothing. I would have probably
made a fool of myself picking out outfits if she hadn't.

        The end result of the shopping trip was that I got three entirely new outfits.
It was obvious that my parents had become more affluent than I remembered. As
Bob, I never had enough money to shop for much more than a couple of shirts or a
pair of pants - and those would have to be on sale.

        We ate out at a nice restaurant near the campus. By the time we sat down to
eat, I realized just how much I had missed having a loving family. I had been
barely tolerated by my aunt and uncle, and often ate alone. The same was true in
the military - I ate alone as a rule. And since starting college, I'd often eat
alone in the dorms as well. It wasn't that I didn't have at least casual friends
while in the Army or at school, but eating alone had just gotten to be a habit -
a bad habit I was staring to realize.

        "So have you got a boyfriend?" Dad wanted to know as we ate our meal.

        I must have blushed, but they misinterpreted my reaction. "Oho!" Dad laughed.
"I think maybe she does."

        "Is it that Dave you wrote us about?" Mom pressed. "The one who took you to
Homecoming last fall?"

        Dave? Homecoming? Oh yeah. They were operating with a different set of
memories. Did she mean the Dave I knew from class? Surely not; after all, there
were a lot of Daves in the world. Besides, Dave wasn't my type. What was I
saying? Of course he wasn't my type; he was another guy. I mean he was a guy. I
mean... oh what the hell did I mean?

        "I'm not seeing anybody now," I said carefully. I could have added that I had
no intention of seeing anyone either until I got changed back into Bob. And then
the only "anyone" I wanted to see in that way would look like... look like...
well, I guess like I looked now.

        "No?" they both said in surprise.

        "No," I affirmed.

        My mother signaled my father with a look.

        I put down my fork. "What?"

        "Well," Mom began, carefully choosing her words, "I guess we're just a little
surprised. You've always been so boy crazy that I think the last time you were
without a steady boyfriend was when you were in junior high."

        So I was right. This identity Walt had given me was into guys in a big way.
Maybe that was why against my will guys were starting to look pretty good. My
mind remembered the previous reality and knew I was really a man - or should
have been. But slowly but surely my brain was re-circuiting itself to Ashley's
preferences. If I didn't get back to a male reality quickly, I might really end
up attracted to guys - not my idea of a good time I must say.

        The conversation took another turn - for which I was grateful. We talked about
a lot of things. Some of the reminisces my parents brought up I could actually
remember - sort of. They mentioned an old friend of mine I had almost forgotten.
Now, of course, he was the first boy I ever kissed. They talked about Melody
Renquist, who I remembered as the prettiest girl in fifth grade. Now, we were
good friends, according to my parents, and had been cheerleaders together in
high school. I managed to say a few things, but mostly I just listened as my
parents talked fondly of an adolescence I had never known.

        My parents saw me back to my room. There were tearful goodbyes. I think that
shook them up a little, wondering why I was so upset to see them leave. I
couldn't exactly tell them that the last time I had hugged them goodbye, I found
out later that they were dead.

        I was sort of glad Nancy was out partying. It left me alone in our room with my
thoughts. Meeting my parents and spending the day with them had opened up a
world that I had thought had been lost to me. When my parents had died and I
found myself at the mercy of my uncle, I convinced myself that families weren't
really necessary. I could make it through life completely on my own. And I had
done just that for most of my mature life. Now though, I had been given a
chance to see what I had missed, and I was like a hungry man - or woman, I
suppose - who is suddenly given just a bite of fine steak: it wasn't enough and
I craved more.

        But I wasn't likely to get more, I thought, if we were able to get control of
the key again. The only way to get back to the reality we all had grown up in
was to change everything - and I do mean everything - back the way it had been.
Even an innocent attempt to slightly change reality and let me keep my parents
might be enough to trigger a major disaster. If I didn't know better, I would
swear the key was likely to make catastrophic changes as an answer to innocent
requests just to watch the fun.

        I was probably going to lose my parents all over again, I realized as I lay in
bed staring up at the ceiling. I didn't want to lose them. No one should have to
lose their parents twice. It just wasn't right. So with nothing but my morose
thoughts to keep me company, I cried myself to sleep.

        Nancy showed up about noon on Sunday. I was already dressed in jeans and a
T-shirt, but Nancy was dressed as if she was just ready to go to a party. In
fact, she was just coming home from one. "You should have joined me," she
announced happily. "There were more good-looking guys there than... but I forgot
- you're not into guys, are you?"

        "No," I replied. But I wasn't sure how long that would last. Nancy hadn't
exactly been a party girl until Walt changed her. She, Lori and Tori seemed to
be slowly moving toward the Playboy type of girl. I wondered with a mental
shudder if I would move that way, too. Maybe the only reason I hadn't was that I
had been male before. Maybe it would just take me longer.

        Of course I was pretty sure Walt had planned to make us bimbos by stages, so I
could be wrong. So far the only changes I had noticed in Nancy and the twins just
indicated a heightened libido. Knowing the little shit that Walt was led me to
believe he would have made us into giggling, simpering bimbos step by step so
that we could relish the horror of our transformations all the more. And if he
ever discovered that he still had the key...

        "Well, if you ever change your mind, the guy I spent the night with has a
friend," she said with a wicked grin.

        "Nancy," I began, "have you noticed how much you've changed? And I don't mean
your race either. I mean you seem to be more concerned about your appearance and
you're more interested in guys than you used to be."

        Nancy's face got serious. "I've always been interested in guys. I guess I just
never thought much about my appearance though. It didn't seem important, but now
it does. Do you really think Walt did that to me?"

        "How else would it have happened?"

        She shrugged. "Maybe. But if I have changed, it's nothing compared to you,
honey."

        "Well, I admit I've changed on the outside, but-"

        "Outside?" she laughed. "You think all the changes are on the outside? Your old
male self would die if he saw the way you walk and sit and-"

        "Wait! What's wrong with the way I'm sitting?" I asked looking down.

        "Nothing - for a girl. Look at the way your legs are crossed. Guys don't sit
like that."

        I uncrossed my legs. "Guys can't sit like that," I grumbled.

        "But it's comfortable to sit that way now, isn't it?"

        "Okay," I sighed. "I'll give you that point, but so what? Nothing else has
changed."

        "Oh no?" she countered. "Have you ever noticed how guys walk? They saunter. You
haven't been sauntering much lately. You've been gliding - and with a girl's glide."

        "Give me a break, Nancy!" I yelled in frustration as I stood to face her. "I
have hips that swivel and breasts that... well, they swing some - even in this
stupid bra. I can't very well walk like a guy, can I?"

        "And speaking of guys," she countered as her dark Oriental eyes narrowed, "you
think I didn't notice how you've started looking at guys' butts?"

        "That's ridiculous!"

        But it wasn't. I knew it and Nancy knew it. Fortunately - or I should say
unfortunately - the argument ended when the world went tilt again. There it
was, the swirling effect. Although this one was like comparing a hiccup to an
earthquake. We could sense what had happened, but just barely. Nancy was looking
at me nervously. "Did you feel that?"

        I nodded. Apparently the world had changed again. Did the mildness of the
swirling mean little had changed, or did it mean that whatever caused the change
was far away? We didn't have long to wait for an answer. In a matter of a very
few minutes, the phone rang. It was Dave. "Did you feel that shift?"

        "We felt it."

        "Have you guys looked at the paper this morning?" he asked.

        "No."

        "Well get one and call me."

        Nancy went down to the lobby and brought one back up. "They were out of the
Kansas City paper," she explained. "They had this one though." She put down a
paper called the Wichita Eagle Beacon.

        I looked up at her. "Where's Wichita?"

        "I looked it up in the Road Atlas at the desk," she told me. "Believe it or
not, it's a pretty good sized city down where Sedgwick, Kansas, used to be."

        "Then we're in another reality."

        "You've got that right."

        Nervously, I opened the paper. Sedgwick had been a small town, but the
newspaper I held in my hands seemed to have come from a fairly large city. I was
beginning to see what Professor Bordman meant. I was sure Walt hadn't started
out to create a city, but whatever he wished for had created it as a byproduct.
How many lives had been disrupted? How long would it be before Walt
inadvertently made a change that caused Hitler to win the Second World War or
something equally devastating?

        The contents of the paper were further confirmation that once more, things had
changed. Some guy named George Bush was president now, but he was being
impeached. King Charles III and Queen Diana were visiting the United States. I
wondered what had happened to Queen Margaret. The Beatles had their sixty-fifth
number one hit. I had always wondered what they would have come up with if it
hadn't been for that tragic plane crash. Now I knew.

        "Big changes," I murmured.

        "Right again," Nancy confirmed looking at her own part of the paper. "Hem lines
are a lot shorter in this reality."

        Oh good, that was a big help.

        The phone rang again. As I suspected, it was Dave. "You know what this means,"
he said ominously.

        "Yeah," I replied. "Walt has figured out that he still has the power." Neither
of us said it, but we knew what else that meant. He had unfinished business with
us - business we weren't going to like one little bit.

        We had to act fast, but we weren't able to reach Professor Bordman. In fact,
his number was a nonworking number. That didn't bode well. After a flurry of
telephone calls to each other, we decided there was nothing we could do until we
contacted him. Since we had class with him first thing the next morning, it
would have to wait until then.

        Waiting wasn't easy. Twice more that day we felt the swirling disturbances that
indicated reality was being changed again. Whatever he was doing was apparently
minor though. The disturbances weren't very large and a quick look at the paper
showed no further changes. Well, that wasn't quite true. I did notice an ad for
a Chrysler Desoto, but maybe I had just missed it earlier. After all, they only
stopped making the Desoto six years ago in my reality - or at least in the
reality I remembered.

        It was a nervous group of students who met for Professor Bordman's class the
next morning. We were at least relieved that nothing about any of us seemed to
have changed. Well, most of us were relieved. Wyoming Tom was still technically
a fugitive and Jorge was still a custodian, but they were still themselves at
least. Lori and Tori still acted a little ditzy, but I was coming to realize it
was partially an act. They both seemed relatively bright - maybe not as bright
as Lori had been, but not exactly the cretins I thought they were becoming.
Nancy, Dave and I seemed normal as well, and a quick check around my room
produced a recent letter from my parents, so they were still okay, too.

        Just as we were starting to feel a little relieved, the world shifted again.
This time it was a major shift - one of the largest we had ever felt. I tried to
hold on to my desk, but it had melted into a featureless swirl of color with no
texture at all. I thought I was going to throw up. I had a strangely feminine
thought that the yellow tank top I was wearing would be ruined if I did.
Fortunately I managed to hold breakfast down, though, and I could sense the
swirling slowly subsiding. And then, reality kicked back in to the sound of
screams.

        I looked around the room. It looked about the same as it had before, but the
screams continued. One scream was coming from a tiny but attractive Latin girl
dressed as I was in a tank top, jeans and sandals. Hadn't Jorge been standing
there a few minutes before?

        The other scream - the louder one - came from the back corner of the room. I
knew the girl who was screaming had been Wyoming Tom because her makeup was
about the same as his and the red leather miniskirt was the one Tom had worn
when he slinked furtively to the back of the room that morning.

        "I'm a girl!" Wyoming Tom screamed. I was a little alarmed at how upset she
was. I would have assumed that she wanted to be a girl from the way she had
always dressed. Come to think of it, it was the first time I had ever heard
Wyoming Tom say anything.

        "What's going on?" a man's voice asked.

        I swung around and looked at Dave sitting there completely unchanged. He was
now the only male in the room. The interesting thing was he didn't seem too
terribly surprised by that fact. He still seemed confused by the magnitude of
the change, though.

        "Look at this," Nancy said, pointing to her Dykstra College notebook. "I think
this answers your question, Dave."

        The notebook now read Dykstra Women's College. Oh great. That meant every male
on the campus was now female. At least we were the only ones who knew about it
thanks to Walt's early wish. The rest of the former men on campus would have no
idea they had ever been anything but girls. I almost envied them. Of course,
given the name of the college, I grimaced when I realized that everyone would
probably be calling us the Dykstra dykes. Damn that fucking Walter to hell.

        "So why didn't you change, Dave?" Lori or Tori asked. I couldn't tell which one
since they had decided to dress the same.

        "Well..." Dave started slowly, as if looking for an answer. What was Dave
hiding anyway? I wouldn't find out for a little while, for someone we had never
seen before walked into the room.

        We were all expecting Professor Bordman, but instead it was a woman. She was
Oriental, wearing a well-tailored pants suit whose gray pinstripes looked very
professional. I guessed her age at about fifty from the sprinkling of gray in
her short black hair. She smiled at us. "Good morning. I'm Professor Kim. I'll
be your new instructor for this class."

        "But where is Professor Bordman?" Nancy asked, mirroring the confusion we all
were feeling.

        Professor Kim's thin brows knitted. "I thought you were all informed. Professor
Bordman died over a week ago in a traffic accident. Didn't they tell you why
your classes were cancelled last week?"

        It was worse than we could have ever imagined. I suppose it made a perverse
sense, though. If some changes could accidentally bring my parents back to life,
other changes could snuff out someone's life as well. How many people had died
or simply ceased to exist since the key was first used by the Professor - was it
just a few days ago? How many paradoxes had been resolved by the bludgeoning
methods of the Gate of the World?

        Our class was a mess. We were like shell-shocked soldiers, whipped on the
battlefield and only now realizing the extent of our defeat. The twins sat
stunned. Nancy was shaking her head. Jorge was softly praying, and Wyoming Tom
was crying softly in the back of the room. Although I suspect Wyoming Tom's
tears were more because of her unexpected change of sex than the death of the
Professor. Welcome to girlhood, sweetheart.

        I don't know how I looked. I assumed that I had a stunned look on my face as
well. The only person who didn't seem too surprised was Dave. Oh, he looked
saddened but not surprised. I was starting to think Dave knew a lot more than he
was telling us.

        "Professor Kim, grant us a few minutes to discuss this among ourselves, would
you?" Nancy asked.

        She nodded. "Of course." Then she looked questioningly at Dave. "Young man,
aren't you at the wrong college? Dykstra is a college for women."

        "Oh, I'm not a student, ma'am," he laughed. "I'm just visiting my fiancée
here." Before I realized what was happening, he grabbed my small hand and
squeezed it gently in his larger one. It took all the presence of mind I could
muster to not scream some obscenities at Dave. What was going on anyway? I did
manage to keep my composure and give him a near approximation of a loving look.

        "Well, enjoy your visit to Dykstra." Professor Kim said with a knowing smile.
You really don't know anything though, sweetheart, I thought. Like for example
the fact that you used to be Professor Adam Kim until the latest changes. I did
have to admit, Professor Kim's sex change was a definite improvement over the
lecherous old goat she used to be.

        When she had left the room, I snatched my hand away from an amused Dave. "Just
what the hell is going on here, Dave?" I demanded.

        "Okay," he laughed. "I'll come clean. Do you remember when Professor Bordman
told you that there was a rival group trying to get the book?"

        We nodded.

        "Well, he wasn't being entirely accurate," Dave explained. "The rival group he
spoke of is really a society that has been in existence for many centuries. It
has but one purpose: to make sure the key is never allowed to unlock the Gate of
the World."

        "Well, it seems like you've screwed up on your mission," Tori or Lori giggled
nervously.

        Dave nodded somberly. "You're right. It happens, usually with gargantuan
consequences. The Moslem Conquest was not the first time the key was used. You'd
be surprised to learn that Rome was conquered by Alexander before it ever became
powerful. The key was in a scroll then. Ali ben Sharif merely got his hands on
the scroll along with several other magical and moved the key into his book. It
seems about every thousand years, give or take a few centuries, the key gets
loose from our Society of the Key. I won't bother to tell you how it got loose
this time. You wouldn't remember all the changes since then anyway. It just did
and that's that.

        "Some Grand Master of the Society worked out a spell centuries ago that makes
agents of the Society immune to the powers of the Gate of the World. No matter
what happens, agents remember all of the experienced pasts and are immune to
transformations from the Gate."

        "And you're an agent," I surmised.

        "Right the first time," he replied with a grin. "See, you all think you've
known me all semester. The truth of the matter is that I wasn't in this class
until last week when Professor Bordman disappeared. You just don't remember
that. Of course, thanks to Walter's stupid little off-hand wish, now all of you
remember your experienced pasts, but only from the time he made the wish."

        "Hey, wait a minute," I interjected. "If you aren't subject to the power of the
key, how did you end up in this class with us?"

        Dave looked a little sheepish. "I screwed up," he said. "When we finished
going through Professor Bordman's office, I wished out loud that I knew where he
had hidden the book. Agents are always attuned to the key since that's how we
stay immune to the changes. The book was closer than we all realized and it
moved me into this class. The Grand Master's spell doesn't protect agents from
their own wishes."

        "And so Monday morning when Walt and I brought the book into the classroom, you
knew where Professor Bordman had hidden the book," I concluded for him. "Clever.
The key granted your wish..."

        "...but not the way I had wanted hit," Dave finished with a smile. "That seems
to be the nature of the key."

        "So the stuff about going to Rutgers was all bullshit," Nancy said.

        Dave shook his head. "No, I actually am a Rutgers graduate. I got recruited
straight out of school. You see, I was a Middle Eastern Affairs major. I speak
fluent Arabic and have a good working knowledge of the area. It helps when
dealing with attempts to get the key since most of the research on it was done
in that part of the world."

        "So what do we do now?" Jorge asked.

        Dave shrugged. "We need to get the key back."

        "Yeah, man," Wyoming Tom interrupted. "I want to get rid of these tits and clit
pronto."

        "I thought you'd be the one person who wouldn't mind being changed into a
girl," I told her.

        She looked at me as if I had just lost my mind. "What makes you say that?"

        "Well...uh..." I began, "you wear all that girl stuff to class all the time. I
just figured..."

        "Well you figured wrong," she broke in shrilly. "I'm a transvestite - not a
transsexual. I want to be a guy again. The clothes are just for... well, you
know."

        No, I didn't know. And I wasn't sure I wanted to know either. I guess whatever
melts your butter...

        "Sorry," Dave told Wyoming Tom - or whatever her name now was. "Once we get the
book back, there'll be no more changes. It's too dangerous."

        "But you guys know all about the book," I protested. "You can change us back
without any problems."

        Dave shook his head. "Sorry, but that just isn't the case. The Gate of the
World doesn't work that way. Say I asked it to make you male again. It might
decide that the way to do that is to let the British win the American
Revolution."

        "But that's ridiculous!" I argued. "That would take a massive change when only
a small one was required."

        "I'll grant that the Gate usually doesn't do anything that extreme. However
when Professor Bordman used it to get away, it wiped out the Confederate States
of America to do it."

        "The South won the war?" Lori and Tori gasped together. Lori was a history
major, so Tori probably was, too. "Wow!"

        "But can't we just ask the Gate to make things the way they were before Walt got
his hands on the key?" I wanted to know.

        "Phrasing it that way would set up a paradox. The Gate can only change things
but it can't undo them. Say the Gate decided to go back to the moment before
Walt made his first wish. Time would start again and he would wish those things
all over again. The Society believes it might even destroy the world."

        And that would be bad. There was nothing left for me to say. I had run out of
arguments. I think it was that moment that I really realized for the first time
there would be no going back. I was stuck as a girl for the rest of my life.
Well, at least I had my parents back, and that was important to me. And I was
cute. Considering the possible alternative of being a fat, dumpy chick, it
didn't seem so bad to be cute. There might even come a day when I was really,
really glad to be cute.

        "Okay," I sighed. "So how do we get the key back into the book?"

        "We don't," Dave told us.

        "Huh?" I think everyone said it.

        "The book seems to get away from us all too often. I think Ali ben Sharif added
some additional magic to the book that allowed it to escape our stewardship over
and over. The Society has built a special repository for the key. I can't even
tell all of you what it is or where it will be. Suffice it to say it will be
somewhere that the Society can watch it and no one else can reach it. Of course
first we have to figure out a way to reach Walt and get the key back."

        "Well I can take care of finding him," Nancy said, looking out the window.
"He's right outside the building."

        I rushed to the window. "Is he carrying anything with him - anything that might
be the key?"

        "Yeah," Tori or Lori said, crowding into the window. "He's got something in his
hand that's sort of shiny."

        "A cigarette lighter!" Nancy pronounced. "The key must be in his cigarette
lighter."

        Well, there was another reason not to like Walt - he smelled of stale smoke. I
found myself wishing the key had been transferred into one of his cigarettes. It
would have been funny if the key had gone up in a cloud of smoke, its remnants
nothing more than a crushed filter in a dirty ashtray. No such luck, though. I
turned to Dave. "Same plan as before? I distract him and you grab the lighter?"

        Dave shook his head. "I don't think it will be that easy this time. He'll make
sure no one touches that lighter. Walt may not be the brightest light on the
Christmas tree but he's not stupid enough to let us grab the lighter as easily
as we grabbed the book."

        "Then we have to get out of here!" Jorge cried, running for the door before she
could be stopped. Wyoming Tom stopped muttering and rushed after her. Jorge and
Wyoming Tom hadn't been much help to us so far, so I guess there was no reason
to expect them to be of any help now. Besides, I liked Wyoming Tom better when
he kept his mouth shut. This female version of him talked too much.

        "Leaving isn't a bad idea," the twins said together, but they held back to see
what the rest of us would do.

        Dave nodded. "Let's go. We can follow him but we don't want him to find us all
here. We need to have a better plan than confronting him head on. He's got the
power and he isn't afraid to use it."

        Okay, so it wasn't much of a plan, but I didn't have a better one. We all
rushed out of the room, heading for the stairs furthest away from Walt.
Unfortunately, I was bringing up the rear. I say unfortunately because I
literally ran into Professor Kim as she was coming out of the ladies restroom. I
was so startled, I could only jump as she grabbed my arm. The look in her eyes
suggested to me that Professor Kim was still a letch and she still preferred
girls.

        "Ms. Kramer, where are you going? And wasn't that your fiancée I saw running
down the hall just now?" she asked, obviously confused.

        "I'd love to explain, Professor Kim," I chattered, trying to get by her to no
avail, "but I..." My voice trailed off as I realized I was too late. There was
Walt, standing at the end of the hall idly flicking his lighter on and off.

        "Well hello, Bob," he said with an evil grin. "Although I suppose it's Ashley
now, isn't it?"

        "Walt, you don't know how much trouble you've caused..." I began.

        He frowned. "Trouble? You haven't seen trouble yet, chickee. Just wait until
you see what I have planned for you and your friends."

        "See here," Professor Kim began, but she got no further. The world was swirling
around again as Walt snapped, "Twelve!" Suddenly, she seemed to grow a little
smaller and her clothing became very scanty. She was still Oriental, but she
looked like one of those girls in the late night cable movies, even to the point
of touching herself seductively and giggling. She looked at me. "You have fun
with Walt, Ashley," she said licking her lips, "but save some for me." Then she
put a tiny hand meaningfully against Walt's crotch. "I'll be waiting for you,
Walt honey."

        Walt smiled wickedly as Professor Kim strutted down the hall. Then turning to
me, he said, "I found I could just preload wishes into the key and execute them
with a number. It's more efficient that way. Would you believe she's the third
one I've had to do that to today? I have to tell you, the backseat of my limo is
getting pretty full."

        I put my hands on my widened hips. I tried to look authoritative but I probably
failed in that. "Walt, can't you ever stop being an asshole?"

        "What a terrible thing to say. Women shouldn't say things like that at all.
You'll regret that remark," he told me, tapping the side of his lighter.

        Yeah, I probably would, I thought, but in the long run it wouldn't make any
difference. Walt and I had never liked each other, and unless he was stopped, I
knew my eventual fate was sealed. I suspected I'd be joining the other "girls"
in the back of Walt's limo any moment.

        "Want to see how?" he sneered, obviously a little disappointed that I hadn't
looked scared. Now I have to admit that I was scared out of my wits, but I
wasn't about to let the little ferret know it.

        Walt had obviously given his next moves some forethought. Whatever he was going
to do to me was preloaded in the key. All he said was "One" and the door to our
classroom opened all by itself. Inside, I could see everything inside had
changed. Instead of the usual desks and other austere furnishings of the typical
college classroom, the room looked as if it had just appeared on the cover of
Bordello Monthly. Everything was in red and appeared to be formed from either
velvet or silk. The bed was big enough to sleep twenty if it hadn't been shaped
like a giant heart. And the mirrors on the ceiling just made it look bigger.

        "You're a sick man, Walter," I mumbled.

        To my surprise, he laughed. "Sick? Oh, I like that. You'll think sick when I
get finished with you. It's too bad all your little friends aren't here, too,
but I'll catch up with them. Maybe I should invite up the girls from the limo.
The bed looks roomy enough. And don't worry, I've modified myself so that I can
take you all on without waiting. But now that I think about it, you wouldn't get
the special attention I want you to have. I think I'll just play with you for a
while. Two!"

        I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised at what two was. I felt suddenly a
little chilly. Looking down at myself, it was easy to see why. I was wearing
something out of a teenage boy's wet dream. Everything was see-through and there
wasn't much of it. Like the room, it was all in red. And I think it was two
sizes too small because the part over my breasts was threatening to squish my
nipples and the French cut panties were real butt floss. I seemed to be on my
tiptoes, and looking down, I was amazed that I could even stand on a heel that
high. And my toes! My toenails were bright red, too, as I saw were my
fingernails. I hated to think what my face must look like, but the taste of
lipstick and the smell of perfume were more than a little strong.

        "There's a mirror right over here," Walt offered, then adding unnecessarily,
"and another over the bed..."

        I looked at the full-length mirror that dominated one wall. Apparently Walt
liked mirrors. I had to gasp. I made the Playmate of the Year look like a boy.
Oh, Walt hadn't changed me physically any further, but my hair and makeup looked
professionally done, and the outfit I wore scandalously showed every feminine
asset I now possessed.

        "Walt, stop this!" I wanted my voice to sound authoritative, but it came out in
almost a soft whisper. Walt only laughed at me.

        "Ashley, you are one prime piece of ass," he taunted. "So how does it feel to
have a hole between your legs? Imagine what it's going to feel like in a few
minutes when I fill that hole for you. You'll probably beg for more."

        Yeah, I probably would, I realized, but it wouldn't be my idea. "Walter, you
are a dickhead!"

        "Oh, such talk from such a pretty girl. I think it's time we move on." I didn't
like the gleam in his eye. "Three!"

        I don't know what I was expecting, but I really didn't expect what happened
next. Something clicked inside my mind - something that didn't make sense. I
still hated Walt with all my heart and soul, but I... liked boys. I mean I
really, really liked boys. And as much as I hated Walt, he was a boy - and a
very well endowed one at that. I looked down at his crotch and actually became
wet when I saw the bulge there. My eyes must have been wide because Walt was
laughing again.

        "So how do you feel, Ashley?" he asked, walking up close to me. "You know, I
could have made you love me - really love me, but this will be more fun. Your
body is going to want everything I'm about to do to you but your mind will hate
it. Won't that be fun?"

        He had made a mistake, I thought. He had stepped too close to me. The lighter
was still in his hand, and it had to contain the key. All I had to do was reach
out and...

        "Ouch!"

        My hand stung as a bolt of energy shot out from the lighter. This started Walt
laughing all over again. "Stupid bitch! I knew you'd figure out the power was in
the lighter. I just figured it out myself yesterday, but of course I didn't know
the book wasn't working anymore."

        "I have to admit, you bastards scared the living shit out of me. I was sure you
had the key in that book. But then when you didn't do anything to me, I began to
wonder... Then I remembered saying that I wished I didn't need the book anymore.
So I decided to experiment. I got all the clothes I wore that day and everything
that was in my pockets. You know what? I got it right the very first time. It
was the lighter. And who says smoking is bad for your health, huh?"

        I tried to kick him in the balls, but I was too frightened. I don't think there
would have been anything to stop me, but I'd pay an even bigger price than I was
about to pay. Maybe it would be all right. Maybe I had misjudged Walt and he'd
be a gentle, giving lover. Sure, and maybe Godzilla was just a harmless little
lizard, too.

        "Now it's show time, sugar baby. It's time to turn up the heat. I've made you
like boys, but wait and see what happens next," Walt said menacingly. "Four!"

        It's difficult for me to tell what came next. I had expected him to turn me
into one of his little love slaves like he did with Professor Kim, and I suppose
in a way he did - but not quite the way I expected. After he had said "four", I
found I hated him as much as ever. He was still a grade-one slime ball in my
mind, but what he was wasn't nearly as important as what I was. I was horny. Oh
God, was I horny. I was so horny that as much as I hated Walt, I'd do anything
for him - anything at all!

        The closest analogy I can think of from my male days was the time when I was in
the Army and went to my first strip bar and experienced my first lap dance. But
even that wouldn't be a fair analogy, for that time, all the sexual pressure in
my body was concentrated in one point. Now, as a woman, those sexual sensations
seemed to be coming from several strategic points throughout my body. The result
was that as much as I hated Walt, I wanted him. Hell, I didn't just want him; I
needed him in the worst way.

        "Okay, babe," Walt laughed, "tell me how badly you want it."

        Damn you, Walt! Damn you to the ninth circle of Hell! But I simpered, "Oh,
Walt..."

        I hated myself; I really did. But my body needed release or I felt as if I
might explode. The silky material rubbing up against my breasts was enough to
send electric sensations through my nipples. I felt as if there was enough
electricity there to power a small city.

        "What are you going to do for me, babe?"

        "Oh, whatever you want," I breathed, leaping at him to rip the buttons off his
shirt. I felt the sexy little nothing I had been wearing pulled from my body to
gather into a silken pool at my feet. Damn, damn, damn, damn you, Walt!

        In moments, we were both naked, falling on the bed together. I felt as if I had
Lake Meade between my legs I was so wet. Like a moth drawn to a flame, my gaze
landed on Walt's large and very erect penis. He was ready, too, it would seem.
There wasn't going to be a whole lot of foreplay, I realized. This was going to
be wham, bam, thank you, ma'am only without the thank you.

        But while my body was under the magical directive to be horny as could be, my
mind was still functioning somewhat normally. Of course a certain amount of my
mind was being ruled by my body, but another part - the rational part - was
churning over something that just didn't fit. Namely, why had the key settled in
Walt's lighter? That didn't make any sense at all. Why didn't it settle in his
keys or his shoes or...

        Wait a minute, I thought as I felt his stiff penis rubbing against my belly,
the lighter was the first thing he had tried to see if it was the place the key
resided. But what if it wasn't the lighter at all? What if...

        "Okay, babe, here it comes," Walt said in a sexually strained voice as he
roughly pushed my legs apart.

        But what if I was wrong? I wondered as I awaited the rude violation of my new
body.

        I might be wrong, but if I didn't try now, I was going to be impaled on Walt's
penis - a penis which from the size of it I would have to say must have been
magically enhanced. Now, I should explain that the thought of being impaled
wasn't all bad. In fact, my body tingled in anticipation. The problem was I had
a suspicion that there was a wish number five as well, and it would be even more
demeaning and troublesome than wish number four. So if I was going to do
anything to stop it, it was now or never.

        My arms were wrapped around Walt's body, partially by reflex and partially by
design. If I was right, I needed to be holding onto him. Just as I felt Walt
searching for the open entrance to my body, I uttered the phrase to invoke the
key. Then, just before he could stick it in me, I cried, "I wish the key was in
my body!"

        I had guessed that the key had settled into the closest thing to the book when
Walt had made the unintended wish to have the key without depending upon the
book. If I was right, the key wouldn't have traveled all the way into Walt's
clothes or the contents of his pockets. Instead, it would have migrated into the
closest object it could find - the object touching the book. And that object was
Walt's own body.

        "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Walt's voice was strained as he
fought to enter me as the currents and eddies of reality swirled about us. There
was no sensation of great power entering my body, but I knew it was there
nonetheless. Poor Walt was just too unimaginative to ever think that the key
could reside in a human body. Since it first appeared to him in the book, he
just assumed the key would have to migrate to an inanimate object. That
assumption had literally cost him the world.

        "Now I wish I were back in my dorm room!" I yelled, realizing that even someone
as slow as Walt would figure out what had happened before long. He could always
do the same thing to me I had just done to him.

        I felt reality swirling around me. I could hear Walt's frustrated cry. I hoped
the asshole was having a premature ejaculation. It would have served him right.
Then the swirling tides of reality cleared and I was sitting on my own bed.

        Of course so was everyone else. How was I to guess that after fleeing the
classroom, they had gathered in my room?

        The girls mostly shrieked in surprise - even the two newest girls. Dave had
been sitting right next to where I appeared, and he jumped up in shock and
embarrassment, his face red as he tried to decide whether to turn away to
protect my modesty or look right at me to admire the view. I thought it was kind
of cute. Then I noticed the bulge in his trousers...

        "Ashley!" Nancy exclaimed, being the first to recover. "Are you all right?"

        I didn't answer until I had ripped off the sheet and make a fumbling attempt to
cover everything up. The bottom half was no problem, but I was a little new at
being a girl, so I had difficulty keeping the sheet up over my breasts. Besides,
the material of the sheet was a little rough on my tender and extended nipples.

        "What happened?" the twins asked in unison.

        "I'll tell you later," I managed to gasp. "First of all, everybody get out of
the room!"

        Sensing the urgency of my request, everyone jumped for the door without further
questions. I must have looked wild and desperate. Come to think of it, I was.

        "Not you, Dave!"

        Dave turned, confused as Nancy shut the door upon exiting. "What..."

        "No questions now!" I told him through gritted teeth, pointing at the bed.
"Just get your ass over here!"

        Okay, so I'll admit I could have probably used the key to eliminate the sexual
urgency. I could give the rational explanation and say I was afraid the key
might take some obtuse way of correcting the problem, like making be a
pre-pubescent girl or something. But the fact of the matter was I was far too
gone to be worried about the key might or might not do. I was much more
concerned that I would go crazy if I didn't have a man - any man - inside me. As
it turned out, I couldn't have picked a better man.

        Is sex better as a woman or a man? I suppose I'm one of the few people who
could really answer that question. Let's just say it's... different. And all
that stuff I had heard about multiple orgasms was pretty much on the mark. And
from the silly smile on Dave's face, I would have to say I wasn't the only one
who had a good time that morning.

        "So what do we do now?" Nancy asked once Dave and I were decent and we had put
the room back together. I had already explained to everyone what had happened
with Walt. Of course, I left out most of the juicy parts, but the disheveled,
naked condition I had appeared in had probably given everyone the idea.

        "Use the key and change us back!" Wyoming Tom demanded. She was looking at me
as if I had just betrayed the entire male gender by hopping in bed with Dave.
Transvestites - I'd never understand them. I thought they all wanted to be girls
until Wyoming Tom had set me straight.

        "Yes, please," Jorge asked more politely. "I would not want to be a woman in my
country. They are not given any power."

        I was sure that was true. Women's Lib hadn't quite flourished in many Hispanic
nations. I was certain that she wouldn't even be at Dykstra if it hadn't been
changed into a women's college.

        Fortunately, neither Wyoming Tom or Jorge knew the key was within me. Dave had
wisely suggested I keep that information to myself. Sure, I could have told the
key to lock itself in me until I said otherwise, but that would shift reality
still further. A quick look at the latest paper told me it might not be a good
idea to make any more changes. The world we were left with wasn't too bad, but I
could certainly imagine it being a lot worse.

        Still, I started to answer. I was going to try to explain to them how dangerous
it might be to change things again. But before I could, Dave answered for me.
"We can't do it. It's just too dangerous."

        "What?" Jorge and Wyoming Tom said together. I noticed Tori, Lori and Nancy
said nothing. I had a pretty good hunch they were all perfectly happy to stay
the way they were now.

        "You can't leave us like this," Wyoming Tom complained. "You have the power,
Ashley. Look, stay a girl if you want, but change us back."

        Stay a girl? Why yes, I supposed I would. And why shouldn't I? I had my parents
back, I was attractive, and if my little romp in bed with Dave was any
indication, sex as a woman could be pretty darned nice. There seemed to be no
aftereffects from Walt's little wishes about my sexuality, other than the fact
that I now really knew how the other half lived... and the fact that I noticed
Dave had really, really nice buns.

        But even if I wanted to change back, I think I might have decided not to use
the key. It was just too dangerous. Even using it to transfer the key to me and
escape Walter probably changed a few more events in the world. Hopefully not too
many.

        But Jorge and Wyoming Tom were insistent. They continued to lobby for the
return of their masculinity until they were practically threatening both Dave
and me. At last, I just couldn't stand their complaining anymore. With an
exasperated sigh, I practically yelled, "Look, you guys, will you quit your
complaining? I wish you two could just be happy being girls and leave it at
that."

        Both Jorge and Wyoming Tom were silent. They stared at me blankly for a moment,
and I realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had
inadvertently invoked the key.

        "Yeah, you're probably right," Wyoming said at length. "I mean after all, I
enjoy wearing women's clothes. Now I have the body for it. It might not be so
bad."

        "Es verdad," Jorge said. "It is the truth. My parents have another son, but
they always wanted a daughter. Perhaps I can marry well and have through my
husband even more power than my older brother Juan."

        "I know a couple of guys in Kansas City," Wyoming Tom suggested. "They're both
wealthy. I suppose I should give dating guys a try."

        "Wealthy you say?" Jorge asked with a wide smile. "Why do we not go back to
your room and call them, si?"

        "Sure," Wyoming Tom said with a feminine wave to all of us. "And by the way, I
really like that dress you're wearing. Do you think I could borrow it?"

        I guess Shakespeare had it right - all's well that ends well. I guess with the
exception of Professor Bordman, we all ended up okay. But then again, as they
say in the old horror movies, he dabbled with powers too dangerous for mankind
to know. Of course I can only speak for the people I know. For all I know, maybe
millions of people are different now than they were before all of this mess
started. But there wasn't much that could be done about that, I suppose.

        Unfortunately, Walt turned out better than he deserved. He was seen bustling
out of the dorm wearing the clothes I shredded off his back. Witnesses said he
looked a little worried. I suppose he thought I'd take revenge on him once I had
the power of the key, and maybe I should have. The last I heard of him, he was
worth a couple of billion dollars and was living with his girls on a private
island in the Caribbean. Well, as volatile as the stock market has been lately,
maybe he'll lose it all. I doubt it though, and I really don't have time to
worry about it.

        Lori and Tori turned out to be both bright and sexy in spite of my early fears.
The last I heard of them, they were making movies out in Hollywood. Hollywood...
I'll never get used to that place. Where I came from, movies were made in Santa
Barbara, and some of the classic movies I remember like Love Story with Jack
Nicholson and Farah Fawcett were made by a bunch of nobodies. Oh well...

        Nancy is doing well from what I hear. She's an exec with a cosmetics company. I
think she's happy with her changes. She's sexy and looks sharp. I'm happy for
her.

        As for Jorge, she is Julia now - that's pronounced "who-lia" in Spanish. She
did what she set out to do - she married well. Her husband is an up and coming
politician back in her home country and may even be El Presidente someday.

        Wyoming Tom is, of course, Tanya Wyoming, one of the top fashion models in the
world. They say no woman wears clothing like Tanya, and when she struts down the
runway in a new outfit, buyers from all over the world fight each other to
purchase the strictly-limited quantities of her attire. There's a rumor that
when she's alone, she likes to dress up in men's suits, but that's just a rumor.

        And then there's me. I guess to tell what happened to me, I have to go back to
that day I became the temporary home for the key to the Gate of the World.

        Everyone left my room for classes; after all, life goes on even in the latest
reality. I didn't have a class for an hour and, of course, Dave wasn't even a
student so we stayed behind. We were both sitting on the bed, but that was all -
just sitting. I was alternating between embarrassment and the remnants of the
afterglow of not one, not two, but three marvelous orgasms. Dave didn't do so
badly himself, and I suspect he felt about the same way. I would have if I had
been he. On the plus side, he had gotten his rocks off in a major way, but on
the minus side, he had been practically raped by me. I had been a guy long
enough to know guys like to be in control of their sexual escapades. Dave had
certainly not been in control.

        Finally, he turned to me and put a hand over mine. It made me realize how small
my hands now were. "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

        "Yeah," I replied, equally softly. It was true. Whatever Walt had done to me
seemed to have no permanent effects. I think he wanted me like that. He wanted
me to be horny beyond all reason, have sex with him, and then feel badly about
it until the next time. But I hadn't had sex with Walt. Instead, it had been
with Dave, and Dave had proven to be a very, very good lover. And tough shit,
Walt, I didn't feel badly about it at all. "I'm fine."

        "Look," Dave said when I turned to face him, "I'm sorry about what happened..."

        "It wasn't your fault."

        "I'm bigger and stronger. I could have stopped you."

        "I'm glad you didn't," I blurted out.

        "Oh, yeah, the wish Walt made..."

        I drew closer to Dave. "That isn't what I mean. Oh sure, I'm glad I got rid of
that onus he had me under, but I'm glad we did it even in spite of that. I guess
I had to learn what it was like for a girl before I could really start to think
of myself as one. You made it a lot easier to accept."

        He brightened. "Do you mean that?"

        I smiled.

        It was a strange was to start a relationship, but we managed. Dave took a
little leave time and stayed around Dykstra and one thing led to another. I
graduated that spring - the changes in reality hadn't interfered with my
graduation, thank God. My parents were there. I remembered with a few tears how
as Bob I had wished so much that they could be there to see me graduate. Now
they were.

        I still hadn't decided what I was going to do with my life. I had offers -
teaching, graduate fellowships, and a couple of business opportunities, but none
of it seemed quite right.

        Dave sensed it, too. "Nothing quite strikes a chord?"

        "No," I sighed. Dave was helping me move everything out of my room. I was going
to sty with my parents for a time until I sorted everything out. "I guess after
you've saved the world, everything else is just mundane."

        Dave put down the box of my belongings he had been about to carry out to my
rented van. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I talked with the
Society. They're hiring. They've discovered about a dozen more dangerous magical
objects - nothing quite as bad as the key, but they can't keep up with all of
them. So they need more help."

        I looked at him quizzically. "I would have thought since I transferred the key
to that stone they put in their vault, there was nothing more for the Society to
do. But there are even more magical objects, you say?"

        "So they tell me?"

        "Does it pay well?"

        "Yep, along with full medical and dental benefits as well as a 401K."

        "What about job security?"

        "You know the old saying," Dave said with a smile. "The price of freedom is
eternal vigilance. As nearly as we can tell, there are about two dozen copies of
the book, so Professor Bordman wasn't the only person to know of the key's
existence. We'll never be so naïve as to put the key in one of the books again.
Someone in the Society thought that was the equivalent of hiding it in plain
sight. But as long as people know about the key, they'll try to find it. And
there are all those other magical objects out there - not as dangerous as the
key, but still not the sort of thing that should fall into the wrong hands. The
Society's task is to continually misdirect the seekers of the key and other
magical objects. They thought one team should consist of a married couple
and..." His voice trailed off and the smile became wider.

        Okay, so I can be a little slow sometimes. It took me a moment, but then...
"Dave Melisivaro, are you proposing?"

        Suffice it to say he was.

        I'd love to tell more, but there's this guy in Cairo who knows a lot more about
the key than we'd like. Apparently, he's found a divining rod that was magically
attuned to find the key. The only trick is he has to be within fifty miles of
the key for the device to work. Dave and I have to catch a plane to Cairo. After
all, we have to find him and sell him a map leading to the location of the key.
He should spend weeks rummaging around Katmandu before he realizes it was a
false lead. By then the Grand Master will have found a way to nullify the
divining rod. Then after that, Dave and I have a little romantic cruise down the
Nile planned. As I said, all's well that ends well.

The End