"Mr. Jerome, there's a Steve Martinez here to see you. He
doesn't have an appointment."

Mary's voice was tentative. I wasn't surprised. Lawyers
make enemies - even young ones like me. When someone shows
up without an appointment claiming to be an old friend, the
secretaries always exhibit a little bit of caution.

But Steve Martinez really was an old friend - or at least
he had been. I hadn't seen him in several years but I knew
he resided in the Bay Area. I had seen his name in the
Examiner on more than one occasion and knew he was a rising
young politico. I had no idea why he had popped up out of
the blue to see me, but rising hairs on the back of my neck
warned me that whatever the reason, it wasn't good news. We
had been out of touch too long for Steve to just drop in
for old time's sake.

"Send him in," I told Mary as I braced myself for the
worst.

Steve Martinez hadn't changed much since our high school
days. At twenty-eight, he still had a boyish face under a
crop of casual wheat-blonde hair. Matching my own six one
frame, he had obviously taken care of himself. He looked as
if he could still play starting halfback for the Mendoza
Warriors. His suit was the conservative gray offset with a
sincere red tie favored by politicians and would-be
politicians all over the Western world. As he extended his
hand to me, I could see the possibilities: Representative,
Senator, Governor, or... higher?

"Good to see you, Dan," he said. There was sincerity in his
voice but something else as well. Steve sounded worried.
"How long has it been?"

"About five years," I admitted, taking his hand and shaking
it firmly.

It had been during my first year at the Stanford Law
School. We had run into each other in a bar right after the
Stanford-UCLA football game. We had had a couple of beers
together and parted with promises to keep in touch. So much
for promises. The truth was that neither one of us wanted
to rekindle the friendship. There were just enough bad
memories we shared to keep us apart forever.

Steve sat down formally across from my desk. Even though I
could tell he was worried about something, he was very
poised. And why shouldn't he be? He was the darling of the
Republican Party. He was going to be running for State
Assemblyman in a district the Democrats had held for years,
and if the pollsters were right, he was going to win it.
The district was a swing district on the fringes of the
heavily Democratic districts that comprised the Bay Area.
But his Spanish surname would attract the growing Hispanic
population in the district, while his fair skin and blonde
hair would assure middle class whites in the district that
his ancestry was Spanish and not Mexican. Add to that the
fact that the Democratic incumbent had died in office, to
be replaced by a party hack with way too much political
baggage to ever get elected on his own, and you could bet
Steve Martinez would be representing the district in
Sacramento next year.

Steve looked around my office. "You've done well for
yourself, Dan. You're with a top law firm and from the
looks of this office doing well. Congratulations."

"I understand you're doing well, too, Steve," I returned in
acknowledgement of the compliment. Of course, my office
faced south and not toward the bay like the partners'
offices did, but the view from the thirtieth floor was
still impressive if not quite as scenic. Then, leaning
forward, I cut to the chase. "What brings you here today?"

He smiled. "Isn't it enough that I just wanted to see an
old friend?"

I returned his smile with one of my own. "Sure, but we've
both been here for years and haven't looked each other up.
I know you, Steve. Something's bothering you."

"So it's that obvious," he sighed. "Have you checked your
e-mail this morning?"

I shook my head.

"Maybe you should."

"What am I looking for?"

"You'll know it when you see it," he assured me.

It didn't take me long to find the message he was referring
to. It was addressed to me, Steve, and two others - Terry
McBride and Lance Marshall, or as we were known as in high
school, the Gang of Four. Actually, there had been five of
us until... But why think on that now?

The sender's email address was blocked, but the message was
signed simply "Joyce H." It was enough to send a chill down
my spine. "How did she..."

"Just read the message, Dan."

I could feel my blood pounding in my head as I read the
message I had secretly dreaded for years:

 Hi Guys!

 I hear life has treated you well. I hope you've all
 enjoyed it, because life is about to throw you a ball
 of shit. Reunion is coming up. It's been ten years so
 this ought to be a good one for you. Or maybe not. I
 plan to be there to tell all your classmates about
 Goose Hollow. You remember that, don't you? Now I
 know I didn't actually graduate with you guys, but it
 will be fun to see everyone again. I'm sure you'll
 all be there, won't you?

 See you there!
 Joyce H

I sank back in my chair, stunned by the message. "Jesus..."

"She can ruin us," Steve nearly whined.

"No she can't," I countered. "We didn't do it."

"No, but we kept quiet," Steve reminded me. "It's enough to
cost you and me plenty. I don't know about Terry and Lance,
but think of what it would mean to you and me if she told
everything. It would be the kiss of death for my political
aspirations, and while it might not get you disbarred, it
might be enough to keep a major firm like this one from
wanting you any longer."

Unfortunately, he had a point. An unfortunate incident - no
more than that - a criminal act we had thought had been
long buried had now resurfaced. I had actually begun to
believe it was dead and buried forever. The Gang of Four
had been torn apart by the act. The fallout from it had
been too much to sustain our friendship. Now, ironically,
it seemed that the very thing that had torn us apart was
going to force us back together in mutual defense of the
lives we had established since then.

"So what do you propose we do?" I asked him.

"We've got to be there for the reunion," he stated. "We
have to find Joyce before she can tell everyone and ruin
us."

"Find her and what?" I mused. "Bribe her?"

"If necessary."

"Kill her?"

"Don't be absurd."

"Don't get so hot," I admonished him. "I certainly wasn't
seriously proposing that. Ten years have gone by, though,
and in that time either people forget wrongs done to them
or they let their anger build. I'd say Joyce had a lot to
be angry about and her anger has gotten worse."

"So what do you suggest we do?" Steve sighed.

"I agree we need to find her and talk to her," I began.
"When her family moved away, didn't they move somewhere in
the Bay Area?"

"I think so," Steve replied slowly. "But what if she's not
here?"

Yes, what if she wasn't? What if she just dropped out of
the blue in the middle of the reunion before we had a
chance to talk with her - to reason with her? At least I
was pretty good at thinking on my feet. That was what had
put me in the position to make a run at partner right now
at a firm that seldom tapped an associate before his
thirty-fifth birthday.

"When were you planning on going back to Mendoza?" I asked
at last.

"Tomorrow," Steve told me. "My family still lives there. I
thought I'd spend a couple of days with them before the
reunion." Steve's father taught Spanish and Spanish Lit at
the local college back home when we were growing up.
Apparently he was still there.

"Okay," I agreed. "You go on back to Mendoza and see if
she's already there. I'll check around here and see what I
can come up with on her. Maybe she's still right here in
town. Now, do Terry and Lance know?"

Steve nodded. "Yeah. Terry actually called me. He saw the
message first. He's going back to Mendoza on Thursday, the
day after me. I called Lance. Of course he still lives
there."

That figured. Lance's family had owned half of Mendoza when
we all lived there. Now, since his parents managed to drink
themselves to death, he was in charge of the family
business. From what little I had heard from people I still
knew in Mendoza, Lance was carrying on the family tradition
of boozing himself into an early grave.

Steve and I talked for a few more minutes, mostly about
other things - mutual friends and our current careers. It
was as if we were reluctant to part with only the crime as
a bond between us. At last though, Steve left for an
appointment, leaving me alone in my office to think back on
the incident, which had affected all of our lives.

It happened in the spring of our senior year, just before
graduation. The four of us - Lance, Terry, Steve and I -
had it all. We had all played every sport Mendoza High
offered and played them well. Terry and Steve even played
them well enough to earn athletic scholarships - Terry for
football at Oregon and Steve for track at UCLA. I guess
that made me the brains of the outfit. My scholarship was
for grades and it would take me to Stanford. As for Lance,
he was off to Harvard, his father's old alma mater. He
didn't have a scholarship, but with the money his family
had, he didn't need it. Not that he would have qualified
for a scholarship if he had needed it. He was going to
Harvard because of who he was, not what he had
accomplished.

Toward the end of our senior year, every weekend night (and
a few weeknights) was party night. The parties moved around
from place to place, but the most popular location was
Goose Hollow. Just a couple of miles out of town, Goose
Hollow sat on the sandy banks of Wild Horse Creek. The
creek separated two pretty good-sized farms and an
allowable amount of water was diverted from it upstream.
What that meant was that the hilly little stretch of land
wasn't worth farming, so it sat fallow back to about fifty
yards from the west bank. An unimproved dirt road gave
limited access to the area but didn't cross the creek, so
it was a perfect, secluded place to hold our parties. Plus,
there were enough trees and shrubs by the banks of the
river to give privacy to teens who had something more than
drinking in mind.

The night things sort of fell apart for us was a night when
there must have been thirty or forty of us partying. A fair
amount of pot was available, although of the four of us,
only Lance seemed to enjoy it. For everyone who wasn't
toking, there was plenty of alcohol. Most of it was beer,
of course, but whiskey and wine were in evidence as well.
All in all, it was pretty mellow.

Then about two hours after the rest of us had started, a
few carloads of juniors started showing up. That was the
way things usually went. The seniors would usually start
things off and after a couple of hours; the underclassmen
would learn that there was a party going on. One of the
carloads had four girls - all juniors and all seemingly
ready to party. Usually, the Gang of Four would have
pounced on the girls, but we were already pretty high from
the beer - and in Lance's case, the pot - and more
interested in getting higher. The girls drifted off to find
better pickings - all except for one.

That one was Joyce Hamilton. Joyce was new to Mendoza. Her
family had moved to town when her father had accepted a
position at Mendoza College teaching Ancient History and
Latin of all things. She was an odd duck from the first,
reminding me a little of Winona Ryder's role in
Beetlejuice. I don't mean to imply that she walked around
in black clothes talking about death, but she did look a
little like Winona Ryder with her dark hair, heavily
shadowed eyes, and dark clothing. While not exactly Goth,
she leaned that way.

That doesn't mean she wasn't attractive; she was, in a very
vulnerable sort of way. The dark sweatshirt she wore that
night did nothing to disguise a trim figure with large,
high breasts. Her hair, raven black running half way down
her back, wasn't particularly stylish, but it framed an
attractive face. Like the other girls, she wore denim
shorts that night, and while hers were not as short and not
as tight as what the other girls wore, they did nothing to
hide a great pair of legs.

Strangely enough, I think all the guys in our school had
fantasies about Joyce. She always seemed so completely
uninterested in boys that some of us found that
challenging. Lance was among the worst of those guys.

Lance Marshall could have probably had any girl in the
school just by snapping his fingers. What girl wouldn't be
interested in Lance? He was rich, or at least his family
was. He was a fine athlete - one of those people who can
ski double blacks his first time skiing or be first string
in every sport without even trying. And he was handsome.
Even men knew he was handsome. Unlike some extremely
handsome men, his looks did spill over into the "pretty"
category. Lance was ruggedly handsome, complete with blond
hair, steely blue eyes, and a jutting chin.

Needless to say, Lance was self-confident as well. No one
dared say no to Lance Marshall. Glib, persuasive, and
forceful, the world was certainly his to be plucked off the
tree like a ripe fruit. Everything he ever wanted, he
got...

...until Joyce.

I don't think he wanted her because she was a diamond in
the rough who might be beautiful with a little work. Oh,
she was that, but that wasn't why he wanted her. He wanted
her precisely because she didn't want him.

Joyce was always very reserved around Lance, and that night
at Goose Hollow was no exception. Lance saw her standing
there in the dark, deserted by her friends who had gone off
to party, and made his move. He had been drinking heavily,
and he actually staggered over to her side. She seemed
uncertain as to how to react, as if she had never been in
such a situation before. Maybe she hadn't.

The other three of us watched as it happened. We even made
jokes about it, loud enough for Lance to hear. He shot us a
nasty look and guided Joyce away from our boisterous - and
crude - remarks. She seemed a little reluctant but didn't
resist.

Looking back on that from my office high above the streets
of San Francisco, I realized that if we had not been making
those remarks, Lance would have had no pretext for ushering
Joyce to a more secluded spot. Joyce was for that moment
probably more alarmed at the three of us than she was at
Lance. After all, he was only protecting her - leading her
away from the boorish drunks with their suggestive jokes
and comments. From that perspective, the three of us bore
at least part of the responsibility for what happened next.

Lance and Joyce weren't gone long - or it didn't seem as if
they were. To be honest, none of us were looking at our
watches. We were too busy enjoying the party. It could have
been ten minutes or two hours or anything in between. The
next thing we saw of Joyce was when she plowed back through
the bushes, her clothes barely on. There was something dark
on one of her legs - a trickle of blood perhaps? She was
crying and seemed frightened as she ran toward the road.
None of us made any move to stop her, and we were so close
to the fringes of the party that I was sure we were the
only ones who had spotted her.

Lance came through those same bushes moments later, a frown
on his face. That wasn't all that was on his face. There
were bloody scratches as well - not deep ones but three
thin parallel lines drawn down one cheek. "Bitch!" he
muttered.

"What happened?" It was Terry who asked - or maybe Steve; I
don't really remember. All I remember is that I was too
shocked to say anything. I had a pretty good idea what had
happened.

"She wanted it," Lance bragged. "I could tell. You saw her
leave with me. Was I forcing her?"

We all shook our heads. Lance was our friend. There was no
way we could believe he had forced her. Since when did
Lance Marshall need to force any girl?

"Then she gets out there with me. When I started to make my
moves, she gave me some bullshit about how she can't do it.
She gave me some bullshit about being a virgin. You know
how some girls are."

We all nodded cautiously. I for one didn't like where the
conversation was going, and Terry and Steve seemed a little
unsure as well.

"You didn't... force her, did you?" Terry ventured. Steve
and I looked at him in shock for asking the unaskable
question.

Lance snorted, "Of course I didn't force her. She gave in.
Like I said, guys, she wanted it. I can always tell. Then
after we really get going hot and heavy, she starts having
second thoughts. Damned bitch even tried to stop me, but
you know how it is. A girl gets you to that point and
there's no stopping it."

The argument seemed so puerile in my mind after a decade.
Of course, during that decade, a good legal education had
taught me what I probably already suspected at eighteen -
namely that there was nothing in Lance's argument that
would make what happened any less of a rape. But we were
pretty drunk that night, and Lance was our friend. We had
all known him since childhood. We had grown up together. He
was like a brother to us. We had already lost one of our
gang, and the collective mind we seemed to sometimes share
wouldn't allow for the loss of another.

Joyce managed to walk back to the main road and get a ride
into town. She was devastated from all accounts. Her
parents sought justice, but this was Mendoza. Like many
small towns, the powerful define what is just as often as
not. The police investigation was at best slipshod. The
Chief of Police was, of course, a good friend of Lance's
father and owed his job to him. The County Attorney played
golf in a regular foursome with the Lance's father and
assured him that nothing would come of the accusations.

And of course, there were no witnesses - or at least none
who would back up Joyce's story. As far as the statements
Terry, Steve and I gave the police went, Lance was with us
most of the evening. That was true, of course. What wasn't
true was when all of us stated that Lance had been alone
with Joyce for only a few minutes, and not really out of
our sight. And, of course, none of us remembered to tell
the police Lance's story about Joyce getting cold feet.
That might have hurt his case.

Needless to say, no charges were brought. Joyce Hamilton's
accusations were written off as an overreaction from an
immature girl with a vivid imagination. No examinations
were made. No DNA testing was authorized. No sperm samples
were demanded. The whole story was kept quiet so that
Lance's reputation was intact.

Of course, stories did arise regarding Joyce. She was a
slut - a girl who led guys on. The mothers of good girls
advised their daughters to stay away from the little
oddball. Girls like her weren't suitable friends. Her
family was questionable as well. The Tenure Committee
(headed, of course, by a good friend of Lance's father)
voted later that summer to deny tenure to Dr. Hamilton.
Shortly thereafter, the Hamilton family moved away. Dr.
Hamilton had managed to secure a teaching position at a
small school in the Bay Area.

There was some fallout for the Gang of Four, but not from
the authorities or even the good citizens of Mendoza. We
were from good families and above that sort of censure. No,
in our case, the fallout was self-imposed. I think it was
because as time went on, Terry, Steve and I came to the
realization that Lance wasn't the person we thought he was.
What we had thought was confidence was, in fact, arrogance.
Lance Marshall could do not wrong - at least in his own
mind. We weren't his friends any more; we had become his
sycophants.

None of us discussed what had happened - with or without
Lance. We were at our respective cores good guys, or at
least that's how we thought of ourselves. Rape was
abhorrent to us, and yet we had managed to convince
ourselves that what had happened between Joyce and Lance
wasn't really rape. After all, Lance had just had a little
too much to drink (a common occurrence for him) and Joyce
had just overreacted. That wasn't rape, was it? Besides,
she had led him on. It couldn't have been rape.

Of course it was, and by the time graduation rolled around,
the Gang of Four was history. We barely spoke to each
other, and never again were the four of us together. I
think we were ashamed to face each other. After all, only
the four of us knew we had lied. As far as everyone else in
town was concerned, we had done nothing wrong. But we knew
differently.

Now the chickens were coming home to roost, I realized as I
turned in a last-minute request for a couple of days off to
attend my reunion. Oh, whatever Joyce planned to say at our
reunion wouldn't be enough to send any of us off to jail,
but it might be enough to damage our flowering careers. We
had to find her and reason with her. Somehow, that made me
feel dirty all over again, and I could tell from the way
Steve had acted in my office that he felt the same way.

I called Steve the next morning but just got his answering
service. According to the service, he had left for Mendoza
to visit his family and would be checking in for messages.
The service gave me a number where he could be reached in
Mendoza. I recognized it as his parents' number.

I had wanted to tell him that I had found a private
detective who was going to try to find Joyce Hamilton. His
name was Frank Emerson and he owned a small agency down on
Market. He promised me he'd do what he could. Since our
firm used him to gather information for us, he had a vested
interest in finding her if she was anywhere in the Bay
Area.

"What case should I charge this to?" Frank wanted to know.

"None," I replied. "This is private. I'm the only one you
should contact on this matter."

I could almost imagine his eyebrows rising. But Frank was a
pro. He didn't ask any personal questions. That was another
reason I used him. "I'll send your bill to your home then.
And I'll put one of my best guys on it."

I agreed and gave him the address. I was more than willing
to pay his rather high hourly rate. Frank was good, and I
had learned in my years in law that finding a woman is far
harder than one might think. It's the married names that
make it confusing. A man keeps his last name for life, but
a woman's last name changes with her marital status and
might change back again after a divorce. Still, if Joyce
Hamilton was anywhere in the Bay Area, I knew Frank would
find her.

The results came quicker than I had imagined. I was on my
way home when the agency caught me on my cell phone with
the information I needed. I missed the detective's name but
I couldn't miss the contempt in his voice. "Your girl
sounds like a real nut case," he began.

"How so?" I was fighting rush hour traffic heading for my
West San Francisco apartment and was in no mood to comment
on his opinion. I found myself wishing I could have talked
Frank into handling the investigation personally. "Just
tell me if you found her."

"Sort of," he replied drolly. "She's dead."

They say you feel a chill when someone walks over the plot
that will someday be your grave. That was the feeling I
had, and it wasn't just from the air conditioning in the
car. No, I hadn't started believing in messages from beyond
the grave, but if Joyce Hamilton was really dead, matters
were complicated. That would mean that someone else knew of
the events at Goose Hollow.

"You're sure?" I asked.

"Sure as I can be."

He went on to tell me the strange details of the life of
Joyce Hamilton. After she had moved with her family from
Mendoza, she had finished high school right here in the
city while her father taught at San Francisco State. Her
parents died a few years back and she had no brothers and
sisters, so she settled into an innocuous life working at a
strange little store in the Haight Ashbury district that
sold feminist and Wiccan paraphernalia - probably through a
haze of pot smoke. I tried to imagine the semi-Goth girl
behind an aging wooden counter selling dusty talismans and
books by Gloria Steinem. It wasn't much of a reach.

"So how did she die?" I asked the detective at last. He had
convinced me that Joyce Hamilton was, in fact, dead.

"That's the funny part of it," he replied. "One day, she
just chucks the whole Morticia Addams routine and starts
walking the streets."

"She was homeless?" I asked. Traffic was getting worse and
I guess I just didn't realize the implications of what he
had just said.

"No, pal, that isn't what I said. She was a streetwalker -
a whore. You got me?"

"Wait a minute," I interjected. "You mean to tell me one
day she's selling charms in some little magic store and the
next day she's a prostitute? That doesn't seem very
likely."

"Now you see why I called her a nut case," the detective
said triumphantly. He went on to explain how she plied her
new trade for about six months before an angry john slit
her throat late one night. It seems he found out she was
HIV positive and decided to punish her for infecting him.

I shuddered involuntarily. I had read somewhere that rape
victims often suffered from low self esteem after they had
been violated. It varied from case to case. Some women
became sexually frigid after they were attacked while
others became promiscuous. Of course, many went on to live
normal lives, but the exceptions were notable for their
extremism.

"Do you have anymore details?" I asked. I was, of course,
looking for a clue as to who was writing to us in her name.
The detective didn't realize this, though. I could tell
from the tone of his voice that he was convinced I was just
being voyeuristic.

"I e-mailed the details to your home mailbox," he
explained. "Those were my instructions."

"That's fine," I assured him and was rewarded with a grunt
before he hung up on me.

I hurried home and popped a frozen meal in the microwave
and brought up my e-mail while it warmed. The file was
nothing if not detailed. A birth certificate, driver's
license, and even mug shots from an arrest for prostitution
more than a month before her death were all there for the
viewing. Even after ten years, I recognized her face in the
pictures, her dark eyes almost flashing in defiance in the
DMV photos. Only the last photo - the mug shot - showed
something different. Her eyes were tired and nearly
frightened, as if she were an animal with her eyes frozen
in the headlights of an approaching car. Had she
anticipated her own death? Who could say?

The strange thing, I realized as I reread the file, was
that Joyce had seemingly bounced from one extreme to the
other. According to the detective, there were no
boyfriends, ex-husbands, or anyone else in Joyce's life as
she worked in the store. She seemed to have developed no
relationships at all, emulating the very model of
frigidity. Then suddenly and apparently without any known
reason, she had become the most obvious example of
promiscuity - the prostitute. Were there other examples
like that? Maybe there were. Maybe she had gotten into
drugs and needed the money to support her habit. There was
nothing in the file to indicate a dependence on drugs, but
then again there was nothing that indicated she didn't use
drugs either.

The other question was that if Joyce Hamilton was dead, who
was sending us e-mails in her name? There were two
possibilities, which came immediately to mind, if you
discounted the supernatural. I did exactly that since
although she might have been working in a magic store,
returning from the dead to haunt us didn't seem likely. The
first possibility was that Joyce had told someone close to
her who had decided to avenge her death with our exposure.
The problem with that theory was that my detective had
assured me that Joyce had no such close relations with
anyone. Her known family was dead and there were no known
lovers or friends who would have been close enough to
avenge an assault that happened a decade before.

The second possibility was more likely to my thinking. I
began to wonder if Joyce was really dead. Sure, a
prostitute had been found dead with Joyce's identification,
but how closely did the police check such things? She was a
person of no importance, plying a dangerous trade.
Prostitutes turned up dead for any number of reasons. The
combination of sex and drugs was often lethal, and the
police had too many crimes involving solid citizens to
worry too much about the death of a whore. Could Joyce have
somehow staged her own death and still be out there, ready
to expose us? There were no morgue shots in the package.
What if someone who looked like Joyce had been killed and
incorrectly identified? What if she bribed someone to
falsify the fingerprint records? It was a strange
possibility but the most likely one to my way of thinking.

I tried to call Steve and tell him what I had learned, but
wasn't able to reach him. He called me at my office the
next day. He was already in Mendoza. He was in a hurry and
prefaced his remarks by telling me he could only talk for a
moment.

"Terry's already here, too," he told me. "We're meeting at
Lance's tonight. Any way you can be here?"

"Afraid not," I told him. "I have a court appearance this
afternoon. I plan to fly up tomorrow morning, see Pete and
get settled."

"Great," Steve replied. "There's going to be a cocktail
party at Lance's tomorrow night for early arrivals. We'll
meet there."

When I hung up, I realized I had forgotten to tell him
about Joyce Hamilton's death. It was probably just as well,
I thought. If there was a chance that she had faked her
death, maybe Steve or one of the other guys would get a
lead on her. If I had told Steve she was dead, they would
stop looking.

I went through the motions of trying to act as if nothing
was wrong for the rest of the day. Fortunately, most of
what I had to do was pretty lightweight. Even the court
appearance was perfunctory, so nothing slowed me down. I
got an early start the next morning for Mendoza. There are
frequent commuter flights from SFO to Fresno, the closest
commercial airport, and I caught a nine-thirty flight that
had me in well before lunch.

I checked my messages when I got in. The detective - Don
Wells was his name - wanted me to call. I did so and was
surprised to learn that my theory about Joyce Hamilton
being alive was doomed to go up in smoke. Fingerprints and
dental records had confirmed that she had, indeed, been the
murdered prostitute, and Wells had seen a morgue shot of
the body that he had considered too gruesome to e-mail to
me. According to the detective, there was no doubt that
Joyce Hamilton was the murdered prostitute.

Putting the mystery of the email threats aside, I called
Pete from the airport and agreed to join him for lunch.
Pete was glad to hear from me, as we hadn't really talked
in about six months. Pete Collins was originally the fifth
member of the Gang of Four. The only reason it wasn't the
Gang of Five was that Pete spent most of our senior year of
high school in a hospital, following a car accident, which
had nearly taken his life.

It was one of those freak accidents. We had all been
drinking, celebrating the end of our last high school
football game. Pete had been a starting halfback and had
been the hero of the game that day, scoring two touchdowns.
Pete was easily the best football player of all of us. He
had decided to play for Colorado the next year on a full
scholarship. We dropped him off at his car and let him
drive home on his own since he lived on a farm outside
town. He never made it home that night.

He said he never saw the semi that tore his car in two. He
was just pulling onto the highway to head out of town when
he got broad sided. Probably the only thing that saved his
life was that the semi hadn't built up to full speed as it
roared out of town. Pete's car was torn completely in half,
and the half that he was still in careened into a telephone
pole folding what was left of the car around him.

It took the rescue team over an hour just to get him out of
the twisted metal that had once been a Honda. They managed
to pry him out with all of his parts still attached, but
some of them didn't work anymore. Pete was paralyzed from
the waist down. He'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of his
life, and given the condition some of his internal organs
had been left in, that life might not be very long.

Of the renamed Gang of Four, I was the only one who visited
Pete much. Oh, the others did at first, but when it became
obvious that Pete was in for a long recovery and would
never be part of our group again, the visits stopped. Even
I didn't see him as often as I probably should have, and by
the time our current crisis had erupted, my contacts with
Pete had been reduced to an occasional phone call and a
lengthy note at Christmas.

Perhaps I could be forgiven for not seeing much of Pete.
For one thing, my family no longer lived in Mendoza. My
father had sold out his lucrative law practice (and yes, he
was the Marshall's attorney) and had moved with my mother
to Sun City. My younger brother had gone to school back
east and decided to stay there, so Mendoza was now just a
place I had originally been from.

The other reason I didn't see much of Pete was a happy one.
In spite of his doctors' pessimistic predictions, Pete had
managed to regain enough of his health that he finished
high school, went on to college, and eventually got a
doctorate in history. He was now a history instructor at
Mendoza College, and while he'd never be able to walk again
or have a normal family life, he seemed to be content with
the cards he had been dealt. I had to admire him for his
courage. But it meant that while he had plenty to keep
himself busy he seldom traveled. He had often told me he
longed to visit the historical sites he had studied so
often, but his health would not permit it.

"Good to see you, Dan."

Pete met me at his office door. I was a little shocked with
how much weight Pete had put on as his wheelchair scooted
over to be with a soft electronic whir. I suppose when
you're confined to a wheelchair, it's all that much harder
to get proper exercise. Besides, like many former football
players, Pete had a natural tendency to be a little on the
beefy side. The chair just made a bad problem worse.

I took his hand, relieved to find his grip was strong. Like
many who lost the use of their legs, Pete had compensated
by developing strong arms. "Good to see you, too, Pete."

"Back for the reunion, eh?" he asked as he gathered up his
cell phone and made for the door with me at his side.

"Partially," I allowed. Then I shut up until we were in
Pete's van. I didn't want to tell him what was up until we
were alone. I did want to tell him, though. Pete knew a lot
of people in the Mendoza area. If the Gang of Four couldn't
locate whoever was trying to frighten us, Pete might be of
some help.

Once in Pete's specially equipped van on the way to the
restaurant, I told him of the messages the Gang of Four had
received. We were just pulling into the parking lot when he
asked, "Okay, so why is she after you guys?"

None of us had ever mentioned to anyone - even Pete - what
had happened that night at Goose Hollow. Reluctantly, I
told him everything that had happened as we sat there in
the van. I admit I was fearful of what Pete would think of
me after he heard my story. He was silent at first, as if
trying to think of what to say. At last he said softly,
"Dan, tell me the truth. If you had that evening to live
over again, what would you do?"

"I'd blow the whistle on Lance," I said after a moment's
thought. I meant it, too. Sure, Lance had been a good
friend, but maturity had taught me that rape was nothing to
defend. I would have given anything to relive the incident
at Goose Hollow and make things right.

"What if the other guys tried to talk you out of it?"

"I don't think they would," I replied honestly. "I think
they've had second thoughts as well."

Pete frowned skeptically. "Why do you say that? Have they
mentioned that to you?"

"Not in so many words," I admitted uneasily. "But notice
none of us have gotten married."

"What does that have to do with it?" Pete wanted to know.

"Look, I can't speak absolutely for the others, but think
about it. None of us have married. Hell, none of us have
even had serious relationships," I pointed out.

"And you're saying that's because of remorse?" Pete
scoffed.

I pressed on. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Look, Pete,
it seems as if whenever I'm starting to get serious about a
girl, I remember that night. I remember the look on Joyce's
face - the fear and the pain. I start thinking I'm no
better than Lance for not turning him in. Hell, Pete, I
haven't even had a drink since that night. I keep thinking
if my head had been on straight, I would have never given
an initial statement to the police that exonerated Lance."

"Exonerated, eh?" Pete chuckled. "Yeah, I guess you're a
lawyer all right."

"I just wish I'd had the chance to apologize to Joyce," I
added.

"You know, I'm not sure I even remember this Joyce
Hamilton," Pete said when I finished.

"I'm not surprised," I told him. "She started school here
the beginning of our senior year. She had only been here a
couple of months when you had your accident. Her father
taught over at the college."

"Not Chester Hamilton?" Pete asked.

I shook my head. "I don't know what her father's name was."

"I'll bet that's who he was."

"So who is Chester Hamilton?"

"I'll tell you at lunch," Pete said. "I'm starving."

Chester Hamilton, it turned out, went on to teach Ancient
History at San Francisco State until his death nearly a
year ago. He was one of the foremost authorities on Roman
history and had written several books on various aspects of
ancient Rome. I, of course, had never heard of any of them,
but Pete was quite excited to know that the famous man had
once lived in his town and taught for a forgettably short
time at his college. Apparently his short stint at Mendoza
was not normally included in his biography. Considering the
circumstances, I could understand why.

"He wrote a fantastic book on the Roman military cults,"
Pete told me.

"Military cults?" I was never much of a history fan, but
the phrase caught my interest. After all, Joyce was
associated with magic, and weren't magical practitioners
often gathered in cults?

"Yeah. Rome was famous for its cults, and the military was
particularly big on them. They were particularly popular
once Rome started losing its grip on its empire. A Roman
legion would start casting about for a god who they
believed could help them regain their past glories."

"You mean like Jupiter or Mars?" I prompted.

Pete nodded. "Yeah, sometimes it was the traditional gods,
but usually it was some minor deity - one most of us have
never heard of. It might even be a regional god, say one
worshiped by the very people who had just trounced the
legion's ass."

"I thought the Romans had plenty of gods without looking
for someone else's," I commented as I took a bite of my
burger.

Pete smiled. "That was the problem. Romans were always co-
opting someone else's gods. If you think about it, their
own pantheon consisted of gods who were more Greek than
Italian. The Etruscans had plenty of gods of their own, as
did all the other Italian tribes. At one time or another,
all were worshiped in Rome or the Empire. It was even in
style for them to worship Egyptian gods in some places.
Most of the regional gods we don't know anything about -
except maybe their names."

"Maybe that explains his daughter's interest in magic," I
said. I told him about Joyce's job selling feminist and
magic trinkets.

"Could be," Pete agreed. Then he grinned. "So you think
these e-mails are magical messages from the dead?"

"I don't know what to think," I admitted. And I didn't. But
someone had written the messages to us, and if it wasn't
Joyce, it had to be someone who knew what had happened a
decade ago. My personal money would have been that Joyce
had confided in one of her friends and that friend was now
out to profit from her story. I half expected one or all of
us would shortly receive a blackmail note.

"I'll check around and see if there's anyone at the college
who maintained contacts with the Hamiltons," Pete offered
once we were back in the parking lot outside his office.
"I'll let you know at the reunion if I find out anything."

I nodded. "Good, I'm glad you'll be there."

Pete had technically not graduated with us. He had finished
his high school work from a hospital room while undergoing
physical therapy. Still, his picture was in our yearbook as
a graduating senior, and as popular as Pete had been in
school, there wasn't one of our classmates who wasn't happy
to see him considered part of the Class of '92.

"I'll just be there for the final banquet on Saturday," he
clarified. "I'll have to miss the other parties this week."

He didn't tell me why but I could imagine the reason. Pete
looked tired just from our lunch excursion. His crippled
body was starting to fail him even more. I hoped Pete
enjoyed our tenth reunion, because I had serious doubts
that he would be around for the twentieth. Still, he
managed a hardy waive as his wheelchair whirred away. I
found myself wondering not for the first time what would
have happened if Pete had never been in the accident and
had been with us that night in Goose Hollow. Pete was a
real straight arrow, and I think he would have convinced
all of us to do the right thing on the spot, no matter how
much we had had to drink.

For a moment, I almost found myself blaming Pete for not
being there that night to help us. But that was stupid, I
realized. Any of us could have made the difference and
persuaded the others to tell the truth. We had allowed an
egotistical bastard to get away with rape. Then we had gone
on to prosper while Joyce Hamilton had to leave town in
disgrace, eventually falling into prostitution and death.
Hadn't I read somewhere that rape victims sometimes had
their self-esteem damaged so badly that they turned to
prostitution? Had we been responsible for that with Joyce?

When I got back to my motel, there was a message in my
voice mail. It was Lance, inviting me to a meeting before
his party that evening. "I've invited Steve and Terry as
well," Lance's recorded voice calmly reported. "Be here at
six and we'll figure out what to do about Joyce Hamilton."

The message was short and to the point. That was Lance all
right. He had always been forceful. His message left no
doubt that I would be there at the appointed time. Lance
expected everyone to do exactly what he told them to do.
The hell of it was, we generally did it. I guess that made
us weak, but every group has a leader. After Pete was
injured, Lance was our leader. I knew I'd be at his house
at six even if there hadn't been a crisis because Lance
told me to be there. And Lance knew it, too.

I looked at my watch. It was already two, but I had still
had time to check in with Steve and take a little look
around town. I called the Martinez residence; Mrs. Martinez
answered the phone with the correct tones of the English
teacher she had once been.

"Hi," I said brightly. "This is Dan Jerome."

"Dan?" she replied as if she was having trouble remembering
me. "Oh sure, Dan. I remember you. You played football with
our son and dated Lucia for a while."

Well, at least she had the part about playing football with
her son right, but who the hell was Lucia?

"Mrs. Martinez, is Steve there?"

She then uttered the three words that would be forever
burned in my mind. "Who is Steve?"

I could have replied, "Why your son - Steve," but something
made me clam up. She had said something about playing
football with her son - as if there was only one. Steve had
a younger brother who played football with us as well. I
suppose it was just the way she asked me who Steve was that
made me stop. It was obvious she had no idea who Steve was.

Frantically, I thought to recover. "I'm sorry, I meant
Manny," I said, recalling the name of Steve's younger
brother.

"Manny?" she laughed. "Oh no, he lives in Fresno now with
his wife."

This was getting me nowhere fast. What was the other name
she had mentioned? Lucy? No - Lucia. "Uh, how about Lucia?
Is she there?"

"Oh I thought you knew," Mrs. Martinez replied uneasily.
"Lucia is married. She married Ricardo Alvarez. In fact,
weren't you at the wedding?"

I remembered Ricardo Alvarez, and yes, I had been at his
wedding. But Ricardo had married Peggy Munoz, another
classmate of ours. As I remembered, they had gotten a
divorce maybe five years ago. I didn't recall that he had
remarried at all.

I thanked her after an uncomfortable moment of stunned
silence and hung up. Had I gotten the wrong Martinez
residence? No, I knew Steve's home number as well as I knew
my own. We had been friends for so long that I was unlikely
to ever forget the number. Besides, she knew who I was
talking about when I mentioned Manny. So why didn't she
remember Steve? Alzheimer's perhaps? Yes, that was probably
it. Steve hadn't mentioned it, but we didn't see each other
anymore and he had probably forgotten to tell me about his
mother's condition. See, I told myself, there's a logical
explanation for everything. Besides, I'd see Steve in a few
hours at Lance's house.

Lance Marshall's home was as opulent as I remembered it. As
I recall, his parents had brought in an architect and a
design firm from San Francisco who were directed to build a
home that would not have been out of place in the more
expensive sections of Marin County. Since I had been to my
boss's home across the Golden Gate in Marin County on a
couple of occasions, I would have to admit that the
Marshalls got their money's worth. The home was a large
sprawling ranch complete with artistic stucco and red
Spanish roof tile. In the late afternoon sun, the golden
glow off the white stucco coupled with the sparkling water
from the two fountains near the entryway made the house
look like the hacienda of some old-time Spanish nobleman.

There were several panel trucks parked near the entrance,
and white-coated employees of a catering firm rushed
platters of succulent appetizers and tempting pastries into
the house. Rather than knock, I just followed them in and
back out to the pool where Lance was busily directing them
as to where to set up their tables.

"Dan!" a voice called out from one side. I looked over and
saw Terry standing there, a snifter of brandy in his hand.
He hadn't changed much. He was still sporting a toned body
that showed he was continuing to work out. His blond hair
was carefully styled, and in his chinos and polo shirt, he
looked more like a young Hollywood actor than a
businessman. Of course, since his business in Los Angeles
involved creating financing packages for movies through
limited partnerships, looking like a young actor was
probably not a handicap. Besides, he had actually gotten
his start performing in a soap opera for a year or so.
Terry had always been vain about his appearance when I had
known him. Obviously, he still was.

"Good to see you, Dan," Terry said, shifting his brandy to
his left hand so he could shake hands with me. The smile on
his face looked genuine, and I could see from the way he
carried himself that the air of confidence he exuded
probably went a long ways toward separating Hollywood
investors from their investment capital.

"Good to see you, too," I replied, shaking Terry's hand.
Under other circumstances, I might have meant it. Terry was
an easy person to like, and even with our shared secrets at
Goose Hollow, it was hard to resist his charm. It's just
that we had gone in such different directions that I had
little in common with him now.

"So where is Steve?" another voice called out. "I thought
he'd be coming over with you."

Lance Marshall strode into the room like royalty, a bevy of
caterers and decorators in his regal wake. The ten years
since high school had done nothing to erode his appearance.
Dressed in a polo shirt and dark trousers with a razor-
sharp crease, his blond hair and blue eyes would have been
enough to set some girls into a swoon. He, too, was
smiling, but his smile was no more genuine than it had been
the night he told the police that he had done nothing
untoward with Joyce Hamilton.

"Good to see you, Dan," he said smoothly, but no hand was
offered. It was just as well; I would have hated to have to
kiss his ring. "How about a drink? The brandy is
excellent."

"Thanks, but no," I declined. I didn't want to tell him I
no longer drank thanks in large part to the events at Goose
Hollow. It would have probably pleased him to think that he
had such an influence over my life, and he would find it
humorous to think that I had to discipline myself so
severely. Lance would never have denied himself any
pleasure.

"So where is Steve?" Terry asked as we allowed ourselves to
be ushered into a large, open study where we seated
ourselves in comfortable leather chairs, which probably
cost as much as I made in a month.

"I don't know," I replied. "I called his house earlier, but
his mother acted as if she had never heard of him."

"She's been that way since her stroke," Lance sighed,
seating himself in another of the leather chairs.

I nodded, a little relieved. "I thought it must be
something like that."

"I talked to Steve earlier today," Lance explained. "He
assured me he'd be here this evening. I had hoped he be
here early enough to discuss what to do about Joyce."

"Joyce is dead," I said bluntly.

Terry nearly dropped his snifter, but Lance merely looked
at me with narrowed eyes. "How can you be so sure?"

Briefly, I explained the report the detective had given me,
leaving out nothing. When I finished, Terry was the first
to speak. "But if she's dead, who sent us the e-mails?"

"And why?" Lance added.

I shook my head. "I don't know. I've been trying to come up
with some reasonable motive, but I admit I have no idea.
According to the detective, she had no close friends and
her parents are dead."

"Brothers? Sisters?" Lance prodded.

"No, she was an only child. The only thing I can think of
is that she told someone - maybe a rape counselor or a
doctor - and that individual is blackmailing us."

"But there's no note, is there?" Terry asked. "I just
checked my e-mail before I came over here and there was
nothing to indicate a blackmailer."

"I checked mine, too," Lance told us. "There was nothing
there. I would think, given my wealth, that I would be the
first one a blackmailer would contact."

Also the one responsible for our situation, I thought, but
I didn't say so. "I checked mine, too. There was nothing."

"Then we may be exposed this very evening," Terry suggested
nervously.

"That shouldn't bother you," Lance snorted. "In Hollywood,
a scandal would probably enhance your reputation."

"Maybe if I was an actor," Terry allowed, taking a belt
rather than a sip of the brandy. "I'm on the money side of
the business now. Money runs at the hint of scandal.
Especially these days, even in Hollywood."

"I doubt if we'll be exposed this evening," I told them.
Both gave me a curious look, so I continued, "Most of our
classmates won't be in town until later in the week. Some,
like Pete, only plan to attend the final banquet on
Saturday. Whoever is doing this will want the biggest
audience possible. I think we're safe until then."

Lance considered what I had said while tapping his long
fingers on the arm of the chair. "I think perhaps you're
right, Dan. Besides, the longer this person takes to expose
us, the longer we have to sweat. He or she will probably
like that."

The doorbell rang suddenly and Lance glanced at his watch
and rose from his chair. "It seems the first of our guests
have arrived. We'll have to continue this conversation
later."

It should have been an entertaining evening. Old classmates
and their significant others made their entrances - some
apprehensively and others with the feigned grandeur of
royalty at a grand ball. Lance had specified casual, but a
few of the women had dolled themselves up to try to make
the guys in the class wish they hadn't ignored them in
school. Of course, the guys were no better. If all the
sucked-in paunches had been relaxed at the same moment,
there would have been enough wind to blow over the punch
bowl.

Some of the men - and even a couple of the women - tried to
impress upon their classmates that they had enjoyed great
financial success since school, confidently declaring why
they had chosen to buy a Lexus or a BMW instead of an
inferior American car. Of course, their bragging quieted
down whenever Lance was near. It was obvious from the house
Lance had and the party he had sprung for that Lance could
have bought and sold any ten of them without disturbing
anything beyond petty cash. Still, I had to admit Lance was
a gracious host. It was hard to imagine that he was the
same man who had raped a classmate ten years before.

In spite of everything, I couldn't really relax. As the
party swung on, there was no sign of Steve. I was beginning
to have a bad feeling about that. It wasn't like Steve to
be so late, and I couldn't think of anything that might
cause his tardiness. But what if he had discovered our
would-be extortionist? What if he or she had... No, surely
not. It wasn't worth killing anyone, was it? Besides, you
can't blackmail a dead man. But where was he?

"Ricardo!"

Half a dozen yelled out his name at once. I knew at once
who they were yelling at. Ricardo Alvarez was one of the
most popular guys in our class. A third-generation Latino,
his grandfather had come up from Mexico in the fifties as
an agricultural worker. Unlike most of his compadres, he
managed to start a small grocery market where Mexican
immigrants could buy foodstuffs they had grown up with. His
wife made tortillas - flour and corn - in the store for
sale, and according to the old-timers in Mendoza, they were
incredible. His son had parlayed that sideline into a
tortilla factory, shipping a mass-produced version of his
mother's recipe all over the West Coast. I hadn't seen
Ricardo since high school, but I knew he had been sent to
study business back east as a prelude to joining his father
in the business.

But it wasn't Ricardo who caught my eye; it was the woman
he was with. She was beautiful in an exotic sort of way.
While Ricardo's features were a reflection of his Hispanic
heritage, the woman he escorted was even more an example of
Latino features. Her hair was long and straight and as
black as a moonless night. Her skin was dark - obviously
from a strong Indian heritage - but it was smooth and
unblemished, from her slim arms and long legs to the swell
of her breasts confined in a very, very tight mini dress of
sparkling deep red. However, it was her eyes that were the
most striking feature of her alluring face. They were, or
course, a deep brown, and as they shifted nervously back
and forth through the crowd, they seemed almost frightened.

Where had Ricardo found such a prize? I wondered as he made
his way slowly across the room where I stood mesmerized by
his stunning escort. I took a sip of my punch
(nonalcoholic, naturally) and casually made my way to the
small group that had gathered around Ricardo and his girl.

Ricardo turned toward me and recognized me at once. A wide
smile crossed his face as he playfully punched me on the
shoulder. "Dan! It's good to see you, my man."

"You, too, Ricardo," I replied, returning the punch, but my
punch just bounced harmlessly off the muscle of his
shoulder. His playful punch at me was probably going to
leave a bruise.

"Hey, you remember my wife..."

"Uh..." I stammered as he pulled the attractive Latino
around to face me. She gasped as she saw me, and her eyes
fell suddenly to the floor as if in embarrassment.

"Oh come on... you remember Lucia - Lucia Martinez? Of
course it's Lucia Alvarez now. Manny's parents adopted her
after her parents were killed in Central America. Come on,
Lucia; don't be so shy. You remember Dan Jerome."

So this was the girl I had supposedly known in high school
and, according to Steve's mother, even dated. Yet I knew I
had never seen her before in my life. "Hello... Lucia," I
managed.

Her head came up suddenly, as if she had been slapped. I
could see tears glistening in her eyes.

"Well, say hello, Lucia," Ricardo demanded, harshly to my
ears. The girl flinched. "Say hello to my friend, Dan."

"H... hello, Dan," she managed softly. She bit her lip, her
dark skin around her mouth whitening with the self-
inflicted pressure. "I... I am glad to be seeing you."

Ricardo grinned. "You see, her English still isn't that
good. But she can talk up a storm in Spanish with my old
granny." He gave her a tight squeeze with a beefy arm, his
hand coming all the way around her slender waist to
playfully pinch a barely covered nipple. Then, another
member of our old football team came up to Ricardo and his
attention was turned away for just a moment.

Lucia mouthed something silently as her husband was
distracted. "What?" I asked too softly for Ricardo to hear.

"Help me..." she managed softly. "I'm... I'm..."

I thought she was going to tell me that she was going to be
ill. She seemed almost faint. Chivalrously, I went to her
side, but she managed to remain standing. She even raised
herself unsteadily on her high heels, and I could smell the
flowery scent of her perfume and feel her warm breath at my
ear.

"I'm Steve," she whispered to me.

"Hey, compadre, what are you doing with my wife?" Ricardo
boomed cheerfully, pulling her away.

He turned to introduce Lucia to our old teammate leaving me
without a chance to answer him. It was just as well. There
was no way I could have overcome my surprise enough to have
uttered a single syllable.

Her last glimpse of me before she was pulled away must have
been one of a man in utter shock and disbelief. What was
she saying to me? Was she trying to make me believe that
Lucia Martinez - or rather Lucia Alvarez - was somehow
Steve Martinez? No disguise could be that good. Lucia
Alvarez was a woman through and through. What sort of a
prank was she trying to pull? And why?

I felt the touch of a hand on my arm. When I turned, I saw
it was Lance. "Any sign of Steve?" he asked.

I couldn't speak. I just shook my head.

"Terry hasn't seen him either," Lance sighed. "You don't
suppose someone was crazy enough to do something to him, do
you?"

"Lance," I began trying to quiet the quaver in my voice,
"have you ever heard of Lucia Martinez - or Alvarez?"

"No to both questions," Lance replied firmly, punctuating
it with a belt of what appeared to be scotch. "Why?"

"Steve's mother was trying to tell me something about her
today."

Lance shrugged. "I told you, ever since she had a stroke,
Mrs. Martinez hasn't been quite right."

I nodded in the direction of Ricardo and his wife. "She's
Lucia."

"What? Ricardo's date?" Lance scoffed.

"Not his date, Lance," I clarified. "She's his wife."

"You're crazy," he told me with a shake of his head.
"Ricardo isn't married. He's divorced and never remarried.
I'd know if he did."

"Well he thinks he is. And he thinks that little enchilada
on his arm is Lucia nee Martinez Alvarez."

Lance just stared at me.

"And to make it more interesting," I continued, "Lucia
claims to be Steve."

"What!"

It was my turn to put a hand on Lance's arm. "Jeez, not so
loud. That's what she just told me."

Lance gave an appreciative stare at Ricardo's wife. "Well
if that's Steve, he should give up politics and become a
female impersonator."

I didn't contradict Lance.

"I'm going over there and talk to her," Lance told me.

Without waiting for a reply, he strode over to where
Ricardo and his mysterious wife were standing. I watched
from a distance as he spoke with the couple. I assumed he
was trying to get a word with Lucia alone, but when a man
like Lance Marshall homes in on a woman, I realized her
husband would be wise to stay at her side. That was just
what Ricardo did.

"Who's the mujer?" Terry asked me, using the Spanish word
for woman as he stepped up to my side.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

So as we continued to observe Lance's futile attempt to cut
Lucia away from Ricardo, I explained what I knew.

"If that's Steve Martinez, I'm Anna Nicole Smith," Terry
scoffed.

As we watched, it became obvious that Lance had struck out.
Ricardo wrapped a large arm around his wife and loudly
protested that he had to be at work early in the morning.
With that, he whisked her out of the room with a cheery
waive to his remaining classmates. Lance joined us again
and the three of us retreated to his study wordlessly.

"She wouldn't say anything with Ricardo there," Lance told
us in private. "But something is bothering her. I could see
it in her eyes. She wanted to talk to me, but there just
wasn't an opportunity."

"You don't really think she's Steve in drag, do you, Lance"
Terry wanted to know as he sank into one of the leather
chairs.

Lance sat on the desk and shook his head, laughing,
"Obviously not. I said I didn't get a chance to talk to
her, but I had a good enough look down the front of her
dress to know those puppies weren't plastic."

I sat in one of the other chairs, facing my two classmates.
"But there's still the question of where Steve is," I
pointed out.

Terry looked at me with surprise. "You don't really think
that little Latin number is Steve, do you?"

"Of course not," I was quick to reply. "But I'll ask again:
where is Steve?"

"He probably had something come up in Sacramento or San
Francisco," Lance theorized. "You know how politicians
are."

"Steve wouldn't do that without leaving word," I pointed
out. "Besides, I keep thinking about what his mother said."

Lance shook his head. "I told you to discount anything she
said. Ever since her stroke, she hasn't been quite right in
the head."

"Okay," I agreed, "but she mentioned Lucia as if she was a
daughter or something."

"She couldn't be Steve's sister," Terry argued. "The
Martinez family is pure Spanish. Ricardo's wife looks more
Indian than anything else."

I shook my head. "She's adopted, according to Ricardo." I
turned to Lance. "And as for your comments about Mrs.
Martinez and her stroke, I don't believe Ricardo has had a
stroke and he thinks his wife is the adopted daughter of
the Martinez family. Also, I didn't see anyone else at the
reunion who thought there was anything odd about his wife."

Lance's eyes narrowed, "Just what are you trying to say,
buddy? Are you trying to make us believe that Steve has
been magically transformed into Little Latin Lupe Lou?"

Terry snickered at Lance's joke, but I wasn't laughing. "I
don't know how to explain it," I admitted. "But in less
someone is playing an elaborate joke on us, I do know Steve
has disappeared and a woman only the three of us don't seem
to remember claims to be him."

"Maybe you're right," Lance said slowly. "Maybe this is a
joke."

"If it is, it isn't funny," Terry observed.

Lance put a hand on Terry's arm. "No, listen, pal. If
anybody could pull off a stunt like this it's Steve. He and
Ricardo were good friends, and it was his mother who told
you about Lucia."

"That's right!" Terry agreed, his face brightening. "That
must be it."

I saw no purpose in arguing with them. They were determined
to come up with some reasonable explanation for what we had
seen. I couldn't blame them, I thought. But it just didn't
seem plausible to me. Steve wasn't a prankster, even though
I had to admit he was smart enough to pull off a major
stunt just as Lance had suggested. And what else made
sense? Magic? Divine retribution? Vengeance from beyond the
grave?

All I knew as I drove back to my motel was that Joyce
Hamilton was dead and buried. That made her the only person
in the entire sordid mess who couldn't be involved in
whatever was happening. Everyone else was a suspect. But
who could it be and what was their game? And where was
Steve? I certainly wasn't ready to believe that Ricardo's
lovely wife was really Steve. But who was she and why was
she claiming to be my friend?

Exhausted, I threw open the door to my motel room ready to
fall completely clothed onto the bed, but then I spied my
laptop. I should at least check my e-mails, I thought. I
don't think I imagined there would be anything in my emails
relating to what had happened, but I wasn't completely
surprised when I saw a sender named "Joyce H." I brought up
the message with a sour taste in my mouth, partially from
the rich food I had eaten at Lance's party and partially
from the sickening feeling that I wasn't going to like what
the message said. I wasn't disappointed:

 Hi again, Guys!

 Well, one down and three to go. What do you think of
 Lucia? Isn't she a hottie? Too bad Ricardo is
 something of a shit. But so what? She's just a cunt,
 right? Tomorrow night is the big mixer over at the
 Mendoza Country Club. There should be even more alums
 there. Lucia will be there. Maybe I'll have another
 surprise for you, too.

 Later,
 Joyce H

I had never known before as I sat there in the eerie glow
of my laptop screen what it meant to have your blood run
cold. I did now. I knew in the rational part of my mind
that there was no way Lucia could be Steve, but my rational
mind was being slowly overwhelmed by a primitive but more
intuitive part of my brain that told me there was no other
reasonable explanation.

But how?

I didn't know much about sex-change operations, but I was
pretty sure they couldn't be performed in such a way that
the patient was up and around in a few hours, looking like
the female lead singer in a salsa band.

What I did know was that whoever was pretending to be Joyce
had certainly succeeded in destroying my sense of well-
being. I really hadn't slept well since the day Steve
showed up at my office, and my first night back in Mendoza
was nearly sleepless. What little sleep I did get was
peppered with snatches of dreams. In them, I could see
Steve in the dress Lucia had been wearing. He was begging
me to rescue him, but I didn't seem to be able to do
anything to help. Joyce was there in my dreams as well,
dressed as a cheap whore. All she did was laugh, and the
sound of her laughter was enough to ruin my sleep yet
again.

I was brought out of my fitful sleep by the brash ringing
of the telephone. "Hello?" I mumbled.

"You up for breakfast?" It was Pete sounding disgustingly
cheery. God, I hated morning people! "When?"

"How about now?"

I looked at the clock. It was only seven. So much for
sleeping in. "Give me thirty minutes."

I joined Pete for breakfast, such as it was. We met in a
little greasy spoon not far from the campus where breakfast
consisted of overdone bacon, runny eggs, and a cinnamon
roll big enough to stop your heart. I watched in
undisguised disgust as Pete wolfed down the unappetizing
meal while I managed with dry toast - the only thing in the
place capable of soaking up the oily coffee.

"How can you eat that stuff?" I asked my friend. At least I
now knew why he weighed so much.

He just looked up at me with a guilty grin, bits of charred
bacon sticking to his beard. "Nobody lives forever, Dan."

"But if you keep eating that stuff, you won't make it to
next week." I regretted my words even as I said them. Pete
didn't look healthy, and there was probably not a lot he
could do about it. The damage to his body from the accident
was continuing to take its toll. By our next reunion, Pete
might not even be around - and he knew it, too. I could
tell from the fatalistic expression on his face.

"Pete," I began, changing the subject, "has Steve been
around to see you?"

Pete's eyes clouded. "Steve who?"

"Steve... Martinez," I ventured uncertainly.

"Was he Manny's cousin or something?" Pete asked as another
fork loaded with runny scrambled eggs disappeared into his
mouth.

I tried to make my shrug look casual. "Yeah, I think so."

No sense in disturbing Pete, I thought. Pete and Manny had
been real close back in our high school days. Pete and
Steve had practically lived at each other's houses before
Pete was injured. That cold chill was racing up my back
again as I realized this was no practical joke. Pete and
Steve hadn't seen each other for years. The accident had
changed all that. I had expected Pete to tell me all of
that. I had just asked him on the off-hand chance that
Steve had gotten in contact with him, for none of us had
heard from Steve now for the better part of the day.
Instead, Pete was acting as if he had never heard of Steve.

"You going to the mixer tonight?" Pete asked suddenly.

"Yeah," I replied, remembering Pete was only planning on
attending the final banquet. "Any chance you might change
your mind and show up?"

"Don't think so," Pete said, a little sadly.

I nodded. "I'll say hello to Lance and Terry for you."

Pete looked up at me. "Terry who?"

"Terry McBride, of course," I replied, feeling that cold
chill once again. "What other Terry would I be talking
about?"

Pete grinned. "So you remembered I had a thing for Terry
back in high school huh?"

I blinked. Was Pete telling me he had been gay? Did Terry
know? Pete answered the unspoken question for me, and the
cold chill got even colder.

"Teri was a pretty hot chick back then," Pete explained.
"Of course, ever since she married Ray Becker she's sort of
filled out a little bit." He shook his head laughing, "Of
course when it comes to putting on weight, who am I to
talk?"

"Pete, Terry McBride was one of our gang," I blurted out.
"We played football together, chased girls, you know."

Pete started to laugh again; then he saw the distressed
expression on my face. "You aren't kidding, are you?"

First a Latino woman had tried to convince me that she was
Steve Martinez. Now, I was being told that there was no
such man as Terry McBride but there was a woman by that
name. I was an attorney - a man grounded in pragmatism and
a strong sense of what was real and what was not. Yet
unless the most elaborate gag in the world was being played
on me, I was being forced to conclude that two of my best
friends had somehow been changed into women.

"It can't be," I muttered out loud.

"What can't be?" Pete asked.

I still felt like a fool. I really still wondered if it was
an unimaginable practical joke. Hesitantly, I told Pete
what I knew, starting with Steve's disappearance.

When I had finished, Pete just looked at me silently for a
few moments before shaking his head. I wondered if he was
going to suggest that I get professional help for my
delusions. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I think
it's what I would have recommended. Not Pete, though.

"So you think this Steve and Terry got magically changed
into a couple of women?" he surmised carefully.

"Yes... No... God, I don't know, Pete," I sighed. "You
think I don't know how all of this sounds? Hell, it even
sounds crazy to me, but I know that I went to school with a
Steve Martinez and a Terry McBride - a male Terry McBride."

"And yet Joyce Hamilton is dead," Pete prompted.

"Without a doubt. Maybe she had a friend who's doing this
for her. Or maybe she cursed us just before she died. I
don't know, Pete. I can't even begin to explain it."

"But if you're right," Pete pointed out, "it's only a
matter of time until she comes after you and Lance."

Now why hadn't I thought of that? To be honest, it hadn't
even crossed my mind. The whole idea of having one's sex
magically changed was so bizarre that I hadn't even thought
about what that would mean for Lance or for me. I tried to
put myself in the perpetrator's mind. If I were she - or he
- I would save Lance for last. I'd make certain that he
watched all of hi old gang disappear before I went after
him.

That meant I was next...

I could tell from Pete's expression that he had quietly
reached the same conclusion. "If you're right about this,
you're in a lot of trouble, Dan."

"I've figured that out," I assured him. "But how, Pete?
There isn't any magic in the world. It's all just childish
fantasies."

Pete pushed his plate away thoughtfully and remained silent
until a waitress had refilled our coffee cups with what
passed for coffee in that dive. "You're probably right
about magic," he allowed.

"Just probably?"

He grinned. "Always the lawyer, eh? Yeah, magic has never
been proved - but it hasn't been disproved either. Didn't
you tell me Joyce Hamilton worked in a magic store in San
Francisco?"

"I said she worked in a feminist and Wiccan store."

Pete shrugged. "Same thing, I suppose. I would imagine she
picked up an interest in the magical arts from her father.
His last book dealt heavily with the god cults that were
prevalent in the Roman army after the Roman Empire began to
crumble. Maybe she found something that was supposed to be
magic and really was."

"You sound almost as if you believe in magic yourself," I
pointed out.

"Let's just say I don't disbelieve. If you think about it,
a lot of our religion is wrapped up in magic. We just
diplomatically call it 'miracles' but it's the same thing.
But to continue the premise, suppose she really found
something that worked. She may have used it to curse all of
you."

"Sure," I sighed. "Then as soon as she cursed us, she
decided to be a whore, became HIV positive, and got herself
killed by an unhappy john."

"Then explain this Steve and Terry."

He had me there.

We argued for another thirty minutes when Pete suddenly
checked his watch and told me he had to teach a class. We
agreed to call each other if we learned anything important.
While Pete wheeled himself out to his car, I headed back to
Lance's house. I wanted to see if he had been in contact
with Terry lately.

Lance shook his head when I asked about Terry. "I haven't
seen him since last night. I thought he was having
breakfast with you and Pete this morning."

"Sorry, no. Pete doesn't even remember a male Terry
McBride," I told him. "But his does remember a T-e-r-i
McBride who married Ray Becker."

"Ridiculous!" Lance scoffed, pouring himself a cup of
coffee as we stood there in his kitchen. "Ray Becker isn't
married. He's divorced from Polly Williams. Remember
Polly?"

"Yeah," I answered, not willing to bother reminiscing about
old classmates like Polly Williams. "So does Ray live
around here?"

"You know Ray," Lance laughed. "All he ever wanted to be
was a cop just like his dad." I nodded, remembering his dad
had been Chief of Police during the rape investigation.
"He's on the force here."

"Call him." I meant for it to be a suggestion, but it came
out sounding like a terse order. I suppose it was. If Terry
had been changed, too, I might be - probably would be -
next. I had no desire to take the fall for Lance's crime.

Lance stared at me for a moment before silently nodding his
head. He picked up the kitchen phone and dialed a number
from memory. "Chief Becker, please. It's Lance Marshall."

We waited for an uncomfortable moment until Lance said,
"Ray, good to hear from you. I missed you at my party last
night." Ray must have used some acceptable excuse, for
Lance replied, "I understand. Police business comes first.
Are you going to be at tonight's party? Yes? Good. Are you
coming alone or are... yeah... your wife, Teri.... Sure,
I'll see you there."

He hung up the phone and looked morosely at me. "You
heard?"

"Enough," I replied. "So he has a wife named Teri."

"That doesn't mean it's our Terry," Lance argued.

"But it does mean he has a wife named Teri who you didn't
know about," I argued. "It's unlikely that he would have
married in a small town like Mendoza without you hearing
something about it, isn't it?"

Lance's silence was enough to make us both realize the
answer to the question.

As we had before with Steve, we tried to locate Terry
McBride, but we had no luck. Like my family, Terry's
parents had moved away from Mendoza. He had been staying at
a different motel from mine, but calls to it revealed that
there was no Terry McBride registered there. I called the
number of Terry's office in Los Angeles and was told I must
have the wrong number because there was no Terry McBride at
that number. An e-mail to his mailbox bounced back as an
invalid address.

"So now what do we do?" Lance asked as we sat in his study.

I took another drink of coffee. Lance had provided me with
a cup of what he assured me was his own private roast. The
coffee was strong with an aftertaste that tingled on the
tongue and burned with a satisfying fire as it went down.
It was helping to calm me from the events we were embroiled
in.

"I don't know," I answered. "I guess all we can do is wait
to see who shows up on Ray Becker's arm tonight."

I spent the rest of the day telecommuting, in contact with
my office from my motel room. I was happy for the work. It
kept me from thinking about Terry and Steve - and what fate
might have in store for Lance and me. I got no calls from
Terry. Lance was going to call me if her heard anything but
he didn't call either. I didn't really expect him to call.

As the day wound down and I had completed all of my remote
office work, my thoughts turned once more to Terry and
Steve. There was no doubt in my mind that Steve was now
Lucia, and Terry had undoubtedly been turned into Teri
Becker, wife of the police chief of Mendoza.

But how?

The answer, of course, was magic. If I had been told before
leaving San Francisco that there was such a thing as magic
in the world, I would have assumed the individual claiming
its existence to be a raving lunatic. For that matter, if I
were to call any of my friends in the city and tell them of
my conclusions, they would have thought me equally insane.
But what other conclusion could I draw?

A tiny part of my rational mind tried to convince me that
my earlier assumption had been true - that the entire
episode was nothing more than an elaborate practical joke.
But if it was, think of the people who had to be in on it -
Lucia, her husband, her mother, Terry, Pete, and maybe even
Lance. Besides, from the conversation at Lance's party, it
was clear to me that Lucia was well known by my classmates.
Could all of them be in on an immense practical joke? Of
course not.

I had no doubts as I put on a fresh knit shirt and pressed
slacks that at the mixer that evening, I would be meeting
Terri Becker, wife of my old friend Ray Becker, and that
she would manage to tell me in confidence that she was
really my old friend Terry McBride. It was a given, I
realized grimly as I left the room for the party.

Lance was already there when I got to the mixer. "Look,
I've been thinking," he said quietly. "Maybe we should stay
together tonight after the party. You can bunk at my house.
I've got plenty of room."

"Good idea," I agreed. Maybe it would be harder for our
nemesis to manipulate reality if we stayed together. I
hadn't been looking forward to going back to my room alone
if I was right in what I was about to see at the mixer.

Under other circumstances, I would have enjoyed the party.
Lance's party the night before had garnered a limited
audience, whether by selectivity with the invitations or
reluctance to attend a party hosted by someone as notorious
as Lance I couldn't say. But Friday's mixer was well
attended, and I found myself forgetting for the moment
about the supernatural revenge Joyce or her surrogates were
exacting. I had been reasonably popular in high school with
a reputation for brains, social skills and athletic
ability, which had put me among the leaders of the class.
No one I talked to seemed surprised that I had been
successful, and no one suspected the fear I was managing to
hide even from myself.

An hour and a half into the mixer, there was still no sign
of Terry - or Teri. I began to wonder if my concerns were
really a part of a delusional waking nightmare. Even
Lucia's nervous entrance on her husband's arm didn't have
the effect on me that I thought it would.

Then it happened. It was Ray Becker whom I recognized
first. He hadn't changed much in ten years. He looked too
boyish to be the Chief of Police, but I supposed in a small
town, he could get by. Then I saw...her. The blonde he
ushered in had the same haunted look I had seen on Lucia's
face the night before. The blonde hair and blue eyes were
reminiscent of the Terry I knew, but now they were part of
an attractive - if a bit plump - female face. Terry had
been handsome enough to be at home in Hollywood. Teri would
have been pretty enough as well if it weren't for her
fleshy figure. Oh, she wasn't fat by any standard, but she
had the appearance of a woman who was headed in that
direction. Her hips and breasts seemed to be pushing out
from a short black dress that was nearly a size too small,
and her arms and thighs were what could be termed "chubby."
In another few years - less if she had children - this
woman who I knew was in another reality my old friend would
be well on her way to being downright fat.

Ray dived into a crowd of old friends, gratefully taking an
offered beer from one of them as his wife was practically
forgotten. She looked about the room in near terror. When
she spotted me, I could see the relief on her face. She
made her way toward me, ignoring everyone else along the
way.

"Dan!" she called. There was a choked sob in her voice.

"Hello, Teri," I managed to reply resignedly.

"So you know who I am," she said softly.

"How did it happen?" I asked her, gripping a smooth
hairless arm. "Who did this to you?"

She shook her head. "I can't tell you. I'm not allowed to
talk about it yet. All I can tell you is that Joyce did
it."

"Joyce is dead."

Nervously, she picked up a canapé and stuffed it into her
mouth. A second one followed, although I could see from her
expression that it was some sort of compulsion, which was
causing her to eat.

"Did you hear me?" I asked, repeating, "Joyce is dead. I
have proof."

"Joyce did it," she insisted, a tear forming in her eye.
"That's all I'm allowed to say, Dan. Save yourself. Run;
get away from here before... before..."

"Dan!" It was Ray. He came up to me and grinned first at
Teri and then at me. "I wondered where my wife had gotten
off to. I should have known it would be to see you. How
have you been, buddy?"

I learned nothing more from Teri. Ray stayed with us and
talked over old times. Then, he put his arm around Teri's
waist and led her off into the crowd.

I can honestly say I don't remember much of the party after
that. I no longer felt like a guest. Instead, I felt like a
mouse being toyed with by a very dangerous cat. Whoever was
doing this to my friends had them convinced that she was
Joyce, and she wanted them to tell me all about it. She
wanted me to know I was next. Then what was to happen? I
supposed that if her plan worked, the very next night a
woman who had been Daniel Jerome would escape from her
husband long enough to give a cryptic warning to Lance that
he was next. I shuddered.

At least our enemy wouldn't know that I was not going to be
an easy target at the motel. I had decided I wouldn't even
bother to go back there to collect my luggage. Instead, I'd
go directly to Lance's house and stay with him. Whoever was
doing this impossible revenge would probably wait for me at
the motel until it was too late to act. And come the next
morning, I'd get out of Mendoza and never return. Let Joyce
or whoever was after me try to worm their way into my
apartment building with its twenty-four hour security. I'd
be safe then; I was sure of that. Or so I thought then. I
was, of course, only fooling myself.

Lance was waiting for me when I got to his house. I was
relieved to drive out of the darkness and into the well-lit
drive in front of his house. When he heard my car, he used
the remote to raise the garage door. One stall of his
three-car garage was waiting for me, with a wide space
between his BMW convertible and the biggest SUV Lexus made.

"I wondered what was keeping you," he commented from the
door to the house as I got out of my rental car. He was
nursing a drink of something on ice that appeared to be
whiskey. "Want one?"

"You know I don't drink," I reminded him as I approached
him.

"Oh, that's right. You know, I thought you might even try
to head back to San Francisco tonight."

I would have, but the last flight out of Fresno was already
booked. I didn't want to drive from Mendoza to Fresno and
take the chance of someone following me. But I didn't want
to let Lance know how frightened I had become. "Morning
will be okay."

"No problem," Lance shrugged, motioning me into his study.

"You know, you should think about leaving Mendoza as well,"
I told him when we were seated. "She's probably saving you
for last."

"She?"

I shifted uncomfortably. "I assume it's a she."

Lance smiled. "That isn't what you meant at all."

"It isn't?" I replied stupidly.

"Of course not," he told me, shaking his head. "You meant
it was Joyce doing all these things."

"But..."

He held up a hand to silence me. For some reason it did.
"Yes, I know. You were about to tell me Joyce was dead. But
you don't believe that anymore, do you?"

He was right, of course. Joyce had no friends in Mendoza
that we had been able to uncover. She simply hadn't been in
town that long. And as for family, she was an only child
and her parents were dead. No one else had the motivation
to do what had been done. And if two men could be turned
into women - women everyone remembered had always been
women - who was to say she couldn't come back from the
dead?

"I don't see how," I admitted softly. "But you're correct.
It has to be Joyce. Lance, we're both in terrible danger."

He smiled craftily. "I agree it's Joyce doing this. But as
for your warning to me, don't bother. I assure you I'm in
no danger at all."

I tried to get up to argue with him, but he suddenly said
sharply, "Dan, sit down!"

My legs failed me as I plopped back into the chair. I
hadn't simply fallen back out of fear or surprise; rather,
I had lost complete control of my body. I sat when Lance
told me to sit. It was then that I felt my stomach turn as
a sudden leap of logic realized the reason for the smile.

"It wasn't Joyce; it was you - you did all of this!"

"You were always the smartest of the Gang of Four, weren't
you, Dan?" he mocked me. "Not that it's done you any good."
He gave an exaggerated sigh, "Not that I can blame you, I
suppose. The answer was a little hard to swallow,
especially the way I've kept off balance."

I fought to get up from the chair, but my muscles refused
to respond. "Why, Lance? Why are you doing this? Why are
you helping Joyce?"

His dark eyes danced merrily close to my face. "You poor
fool, haven't you figured it out yet? I'm not Lance; I'm
Joyce!"

There was a ringing in my ears as I felt my blood pressure
rising. I scarcely understood what he had said. "What...
what are you talking about?"

"It's magic!" he laughed derisively. "Are you too bull
headed to understand that? I know you learned all about my
job where we dealt in Wiccan magic. But that wasn't all we
dealt in. Many purported magical items crossed over my
counter in the years I worked there until finally the right
one showed up. The poor fool of an owner had no idea what
he really had. But he had read my father's book and thought
it might be valuable. I convinced him that it was just a
cheap imitation. He was happy to have the five hundred
dollars I gave him for it. Would you like to know what it
was?"

I didn't bother to answer. No matter what I said Lance - or
perhaps the creature who inhabited Lance's body - was going
to tell me anyway. I used what little strength I still had
in a useless attempt to move my limbs.

"It was a statue of... well, the creature's name would mean
nothing to a nonbeliever like you. Suffice it to say it was
an old being - one my father wrote about. It was an entity
who would change reality for its supplicants. One of the
Roman legions used it to turn a defeat into a victory
before the statue was stolen and the legion wiped out."

He placed a worn stone statue on the desk in front of me.
It looked like one of the gargoyles I had seen on a trip to
France a few years earlier. Perhaps it had even been the
model for one. It was vaguely humanoid in shape but with
its features distorted to nearly demonic proportions. I
tried to reach out for it. My arm moved, quivered actually,
a little but I couldn't raise it high enough to reach out
for the statue.

"Don't bother trying to reach it," he told me. "It wouldn't
do you any good even if you could. That's one of the
reasons no one ever recognized the power of the statue. You
see, to really use the power, you have to be a virgin - at
least the first time you use it. And you're not a virgin,
are you Dan? I'm sure a good-looking guy like you has had
plenty of opportunities for sex."

"But..." I managed with effort, "Lance r-r-r-r...r-r-r..."

"Raped me?" he snickered. "Oh, he tried. God knows the
bastard tried. But he was so drunk that night at Goose
Hollow that he couldn't get it up! Can you imagine? There I
was - he had me pinned to the ground while he whipped it
out. I was terrified at first. Then I heard him swear and
realized he was having trouble with his erection. He was so
mad he nearly choked me. He swore if I ever told anyone
about it, he'd kill me."

Lance put a finger under my chin, getting right up in my
face. For a moment, I could almost see the face of Joyce
Hamilton instead of Lance. It was a terrifying sight.

"Don't think that lets you off the hook, Danny boy. You're
a lawyer. You know the old definition of rape:
'penetration, no matter how slight.'"

He was right about that, I realized. By any legal
definition, Lance had indeed raped Joyce that night. But
apparently supernatural creatures weren't subject to legal
definitions. My mind went back to that night at Goose
Hollow. I tried to remember the smallest details. Had Lance
really been that drunk? I had been in no position to tell,
I realized. I was pretty trashed myself. All of us were.
Lance wanted us to believe he had screwed Joyce and we
believed him.

"I tried to invoke the power of the statue," he continued,
enjoying himself as he told the story. "Nothing worked
until I found the seal at the bottom. When I finally got it
open, I found it filled with a rather sharp-tasting liquid.
I wasted at least a pint of it before I was certain how it
works. Between experimentation and reading my father's
notes, I finally figured it out. You see, both the person
using the power and the person or object being acted upon
need to come in contact with the liquid. In fact, a person
needs to actually swallow some of it. A small amount will
allow the user to modify the person's behavior. A larger
amount will allow the user to physically change that person
into anyone or anything. There are other powers the user
can tap into as well, such as shifting bodies."

As incredible as it sounded, I knew this was, indeed, Joyce
in Lance's body. Somehow she had caused a shift. That
meant...

He correctly interpreted the look on my face. "That's
right, Danny boy. It was Lance in my old body who died. It
was really simple to accomplish. I went to a pimp who
detectives told me Lance used when he took a trip to San
Francisco. I told him I wanted to become a whore - just to
make a little extra money. Apparently that actually happens
sometimes. Can you imagine? There are actually bored
housewives and young girls looking for a dangerous thrill
who turn tricks just for grins and a little extra cash? So
he believed me. I fed him a little of the liquid from the
statue to make sure he never called me until Lance was to
be the customer.

"The bastard didn't even recognize me! At first, I had just
planned to turn him into a woman and make him a whore. But
when I saw the big asshole, I realized that he had it all -
money, power, sex. His family had run my family out of
town, almost ruining our lives. Why not take that life for
my own? So I swapped bodies with him. Oh, Danny boy, you
should have heard him scream when he figured out what
happened. It was music to my new ears. First I reminded him
of who I was. Then I worked on his mind, forcing him to act
as if he were the me the pimp thought I was. He'd be me and
a whore for the rest of his life."

Her grin faded. "But the dumb bastard got an HIV infection.
To make it worse, he left the diagnosis out on the table
where one of his customers saw it. The customer got pissed
and killed him. You know, Danny boy, I sometimes think he
did it on purpose, hoping someone would kill him and put
him out of his misery.

"Oh! I've been doing all the talking, haven't I? Go ahead,
Danny boy, say whatever you want."

It felt as if a lock had been removed from my tongue. I
managed to gasp out, "But why... why us? You got your
revenge on Lance."

My question angered her. "Why? I'll tell you why. Because
you and your chicken shit friends lied for him. Your
precious 'gang' was more important than the truth. My
parents were threatened with lawsuits and forced to leave
town and start all over again. If just one of you had told
the truth, none of that would have happened. Now look at
you - all of you are successful. I'm going to take all of
that away. And while I'm at it, I'm going to make every one
of you know what it's like to have a man stick his dick in
you even when you don't want it. Steve Martinez will never
be a factor in politics again. He's just another immigrant
whose husband will keep her under his thumb for the rest of
her life. And as for Terry, she'll be a compulsive eater.
Before long, she'll be just another woman with a pretty
face and a wide butt. No more glamorous Hollywood parties
for her! And as for you, I have a very special fate
designed for you. Shall we get started?"

Had I known at that moment exactly what she had in mind for
me, I would have done my best to will my thumping heart to
stop beating and let me die. That she planned to change me
into a woman was certain. Even though I did everything I
could to tense my muscles in a vain effort to block her
magical power, I knew I was about to be changed as surely
as Steve and Terry had been changed.

"Let's start with the hair," he remarked. "Since Steve has
dark hair and Terry is a blonde, perhaps we should make you
a redhead."

It was as simple as that. I felt a tingling in my scalp as
the new Lance coaxed it from my head by describing its
length and shade. It tickled as it flowed over my ears and
down my neck, and in the corner of my eye, I could see it
as it filled in and shaped itself around my head.

"Let's give you some movement so you can see what's
happening to you," he said cheerfully.

I found I was able to move albeit slowly as if in a dream.
I watched in alarm as my clothing turned to dust and blew
casually away, exposing slender arms and small hands with
shaped, painted nails. I felt my internal organs
rearranging themselves at his command and shifted
uncomfortably as the bones in my pelvis cracked and re-
knitted themselves into a wider configuration. I nearly
cried in anguish as my nipples began to itch, then extend
as smooth, creamy breasts inflated like a child's balloon
on my reduced frame.

"I decided to give you rather prominent breasts," he
commented as I looked down in horror at the growths on my
chest. "I thought of making them unusually large, but I
didn't want you to appear unnatural. A nice firm 36D should
be sufficient for you, don't you agree? Why don't you touch
them and see how nice and sensitive they are?"

I held my hands at my side, unwilling to move them.

"I said touch them, damn you!"

I found I had no choice. Unbidden by my conscious mind, my
hands flew to touch the flesh of my new breasts.

"Not like that. Fondle them, as you would if they were on
another woman."

I did as he told me, for I could not disobey his commands.
The flesh was warm and sensitive, and as I brushed across
the brown nipples, I felt them rise in expectation. My face
felt hot, but from embarrassment rather than passion.

I don't know how long the process took. It seemed like
hours as Lance taunted me with threats of what he would do
to me and how unpleasantly he would change my body if I
didn't cooperate. Occasional jolts of pain were used to
prod me into activities designed for his particular
amusement. I was made to continue to fondle my new breasts
while my legs became slimmer.

"You should sing to entertain me, I think," he said
malevolently. "Just up and down the scales should be
sufficient. Sing now!"

And I did. I was made to sing a song while my voice changed
from a normal tenor to a soft soprano. Each rendition of an
octave became higher and sweeter, and the quaver of terror
in my voice served only to make each note more girlish.

At last, he was ready for the final physical change - the
one which would declare me forever to be a woman.

"Perhaps I should leave you like you are now," he mused. "I
noticed when I was living in San Francisco that there is
something of a demand for chicks with dicks."

As much as I hated the thought of being stuck as a woman,
the idea of being some sort of sexual freak - half way
between a man and a woman - was even more abhorrent to me.
Ironically, I found myself hoping he would just remove my
male equipment and be done with me, passing me off to
whatever man he had chosen for me. At least I would be out
of that room and out of his presence.

"Don't worry," he grinned, guessing correctly what I had
been thinking. "I'll finish the job. I wouldn't want you to
miss out on the experiences your gang friends are
'enjoying.' And I have something special in mind for you."

"Why me?" I blurted out, disturbed by the sound of my high,
feminine voice. "Why have you singled me out? Because I'm
the last of the gang?"

His grin disappeared. "You really don't understand, do you?
Well let me explain it to you. Of the entire gang, you were
the smartest - the one who would go the farthest. Except
for Lance, you were the one with the most to lose that
night. All you had to do was tell the truth. The others
would have followed you. Lance would have been punished and
my father wouldn't have been hounded out of town."

And none of this would have happened, I added to myself. I
had been a fool - perhaps the biggest fool of any of us. I
had told myself through the years since Goose Hollow that
it was enough for me to live my life denying myself the
things which I felt had caused my failure. I didn't drink -
not a drop since that night so long ago. But worse yet, I
denied myself a meaningful relationship with any woman.
Lance's actions had become mine in my mind, and the only
way to atone for them was to deny myself the love of any
woman. Instead, I had thrown myself into my work - into the
study and practice of the law. Oh, I had relationships,
such as they were. I was young, handsome and successful.
Women found their way to my bed with little coaxing. But
they meant nothing to me.

Now it was my turn to pay the price - the real price and
not the one I had always imagined - for my failure at Goose
Hollow. Lance - for I couldn't think of my tormentor as
Joyce or any other woman - had dug deeply to humiliate
Steve and Terry. I knew he would do no less to me. I
steeled myself as best I could for the remainder of my
physical transformation, knowing that the worst would still
be to come.

The final change didn't hurt. I had expected Lance to
change my sexual organs with burning pain, but instead,
there was gentle pressure all over my penis and testicles,
as if they were being enclosed in a velvet vice. They
offered no resistance as they moved about, always pushing
inward. I even felt a moment of something akin to pleasure
as everything I had once had between my legs retreated
inside a long, narrow slit. There was even the strange
feeling of something moving about in my abdomen, and I
imagined that it was a pair of ovaries forming from the
material that had once been my testicles.

"You are now Vanessa Lea Jerome," he told me. "Or at least
you were until you married."

As he said those words, a large diamond ring formed on the
ring finger of my left hand.

"Your married name will be Vanessa Marshall."

Oh my God! I was to be the wife of a monster! I shivered as
Lance's large, masculine hands fell gently on my shoulders.
Although his hands were warm and dry, I felt as if
something cold and slimy was touching my new skin. I
shuddered in disgust, wondering if I could will the sour
bile in my transformed stomach to rise to my mouth.

"I've designed you with many special talents," he murmured
in my ear as his hands moved to the front of my body and
covered my breasts. In spite of the disgust my mind felt,
my changed body was stimulated by his touch. I heard him
chuckle as he explained, "You see, I've discovered that
this new body of mine has... needs. If I'm going to be
stuck as a male for the rest of my life, I require a
regular partner who can satisfy those needs. You'll service
me as I desire to be serviced. You see, everyone in town
will remember you as a high school slut who landed the
richest man in town with her talented body. There never was
a Dan Jerome - honor student, athlete, and prominent
lawyer. Instead, there was always Vanessa... shallow,
indulgent, and, of course, willing to use her body to
achieve her needs."

He roughly pulled my naked body up out of the chair where I
had sunk into a cringing position. I gasped in surprise as
he dragged me by the arm into his bedroom. My mind was
screaming at me to resist, but whatever he had done to me
made my body comply without question as a sexual heat grew
within me. Even if I had been able to resist his demands, I
was weak, feminine, helpless.

I don't want to describe everything that happened to me
that night. I would like to say I couldn't remember what he
did to me, but I remember every sensation with equal
impulses of revulsion and satisfaction. He had turned me
into a plaything, compliant and subservient with a need to
be sexually satisfied in every possible way. By the time he
allowed me to escape in sleep, I had been violated so many
times I had lost count, and the muscles of my vagina, anus
and mouth were sore as if they had been stretched beyond
human limits. I whimpered softly as he left me lying there
in a sticky heap. As sleep claimed me, I prayed to God that
I would never wake up again.

But I did wake up. I was grateful at least to be alone in
bed. The sounds of water pounding on the shower floor in
the next room informed me that I wouldn't be alone very
long. I felt sickening fear as the sound of the water
stopped and I heard the shower door open. What sickened me
even further was that my body sprang to life with
anticipation, my nipples hard and my vagina wet, expecting
more of what I had experienced in the night.

Lance stood there before me, dripping wet but obviously
interested in me from the erection between his legs. He
grinned at me, causing me to cringe and do the best I could
to cover my body with the soiled sheet I had been sleeping
on.

"So Vanessa, how did you enjoy your first night as a
woman?"

I knew I wasn't really expected to answer him. I'm not even
sure the limits he had place on my body would allow me to
do so. Perhaps if I had started to tell him what a depraved
animal he was, I would have found myself cooing softly
about his sexual prowess. Or perhaps he would have allowed
me to tell him the truth, in which case my voice would have
degenerated into heaving sobs of fright and self-pity.

He cocked his head at the shower. "Get yourself cleaned up
and take a shower. I've laid out clothes for you in the
bathroom. When you're finished, come down to the den and
I'll explain the rest of the rules to you."

When I didn't answer or make any move to get up, he
strolled over me and lifted my small chin in his large hand
until I was forced to look into his eyes. "You know,
Vanessa, you'll have to do exactly what I say. If you don't
things will just be that much harder for you. Now get up!"

I tore my eyes away from him, but I knew I would have to
obey him. I dropped the sheet and managed to slide off the
bed and walked with as much dignity as I could muster into
the bathroom. I was humiliated to realize how much my hips
swung as I walked, and even more humiliated when I heard
the new Lance mutter, "Nice ass."

At least he didn't follow me into the bathroom. I was
afraid he would start the sexual escapades all over again
the minute I turned on the water. Maybe last night had been
just an initiation for me and maybe he would leave me alone
now. But no, I realized, Joyce had worked too hard and too
long to get me in the position I now found myself. Now that
she was Lance, she had allowed herself to embrace my old
friend's dissipated lifestyle. I was doomed to be the wife
of a man whose tastes were both perverted and urgent.

I sighed in relief as the water sprayed over my sore, tired
body. As the sticky residue of the last night's sexual
activities were cleansed from my body, I only wished that
the psychological wastes could be so easily rinsed away.
Lance had made me a whore. Oh, I was married to him all
right. He had made certain I understood that last night in
between sexual bouts. But he had also told me more about
who I was in his new reality, and how my body would be
required to conform to his requirements.

I would be helpless before him in more ways than one. Not
only would I yearn for his touch and obey his every
command, but I would have to act at all times like the sexy
little gold digger everyone thought me to be. I would sound
uneducated and ignorant. I would be desired by most men and
hated by most women for allowing myself to be a whore with
a wedding ring. And should I ever, in any conceivable way,
manage to displease Lance, I would find myself out on the
street without a penny to my name, California's community
property laws notwithstanding.

But to make the torture even more delicious for my
tormentor, inside my head I would remember everything about
my previous life. I would be repulsed by the idea of making
love to Lance even as my body begged for more.

I shuddered. I was certain to go slowly insane.

I dressed resignedly in the trampy clothing Lance had set
out for me. It was the typical array of attire from
demented male fantasies - thong underwear, a thin bra that
did nothing other than provide minimal support while
displaying my nipples, an aqua crop top, and white shorts
that felt two sizes too small as they pasted themselves
against my indented waist and rounded ass.

I found to my additional dismay that while Lance had
provided me with the skills to apply makeup, he had also
required me to lay it on just a little too thick. The
result wasn't clownish but it spoke volumes about the sort
of woman I was to be.

"Not bad," Lance commented as I entered his den perched on
three inch heeled sandals. I stood abjectly in front of his
desk for his inspection. "But you forgot the earrings."

I started to point out that there had been no earrings, but
he smugly produced two large gold rings from his desk and
poked them into the holes in my ears I hadn't even realized
were there.

"Well," he sighed, sitting back down in his chair and
taking a sip of coffee, "at last my revenge is complete.
You and your former friends will all learn what it's like
to be in the power of men."

"At least they don't have to put up with you," I managed to
whisper.

"In a way they do," he laughed. "Both Lucia and Terri will
be treated by their husbands just as you are treated. You
see both of their husbands have had a little taste of my
potion as well. In their cases, I just made them more...
forceful with their wives and gave them better endowments
to be forceful with. Although if I'd asked them to, they
would be forceful just to please me. I own a controlling
interest in Ricardo's business, and Ray owes his
appointment as police chief to me."

"So they know what you've done?"

He shook his head. "No, only you and your so-called Gang of
Four friends know. And me, of course. Feel free to talk to
your other 'gang' members. I can assure you, you will all
have a lot to talk about."

"Joyce..."

"Lance!" he snapped. "Call me only Lance. Joyce is dead."
He calmed down and added, "Besides, I like being Lance.
It's refreshing to have the power I have - to be able to
control people. You know, Vanessa, if you cooperate, your
life won't be so bad. I've made you so that you'll crave my
attention. If you just relax..."

As he spoke, he put his arm around me. Involuntarily, I
felt a shiver run through me. His touch did feel good. As
he said, he had made me be attracted to him. In my mind, I
might consider him a monster - a traitor to his former sex
- but my body would become as aroused as he wished it to
be. It was, to his way of thinking I suppose, the perfect
hell for me. Eventually, it could drive me mad, and I had
no doubt that this was exactly what he planned.

I had to buy time, I realized as a fire built up within me.
I had to appear to be exactly what he wanted me to be until
I could figure out some course of action which would
preserve my sanity - even if it didn't restore my rightful
sex. But it wasn't going to be easy.

The immediate plan I decided upon was one fraught with
danger; I decided to give in. No, I didn't really give in,
but I wanted Lance to think that in the war between my body
and my mind, my body had won. Then, whatever course of
action I eventually determined, Lance would be off guard. I
knew as I resisted the urge to yank his hand away from me
that the danger of my plan was that I would actually
succumb to my sexual urges.

I was nearly right.

Lance led me back into the bedroom, and the outfit I had
only just put on was quickly lying in a heap at the foot of
the bed. I had torn his clothing from him as well, fighting
the urge to admire his trim body and stick to business. I
tried to think of the attitude whores had to maintain and
emulate it. I tried to think of what I was doing as a
loveless transaction between a purchased woman and her
customer. If done right, the customer would never know my
responses were not real. It was one advantage to being a
woman, I thought. Men were swept up in the act of sex where
women could be a little more restrained until properly
stimulated.

Unfortunately for me, Lance had the experience of once
being a woman, and so he knew when and where to stimulate
me. His hands were slow and deliberate as he stroked my
breasts and my thighs, moving to my mound only when he was
certain I could stand no more. When at last he entered me,
I had already enjoyed one orgasm and was quickly building
toward a second.

No one can be truly rational while making love, but I tried
- and failed. I found myself thinking that this life might
not be too bad. Perhaps the rough sex Lance had used to
initiate me the night before had been just that - an
initiation. Perhaps this slow, deliberate session would
become the norm in our relationship. My body was already
attracted to his. Perhaps I could reach a mental
accommodation as well. Would it be so... Oh! Would it be so
bad to... Oh! Would... Oh! Oh! Oh!

"Oh my God!" I screamed in spite of my efforts to remain
silent. The first orgasm had been nothing compared to what
was happening to my body now.

In my limited lovemaking as a man, I had never been able to
achieve an orgasm at the same moment as my partner. Now, as
a woman, I experienced just that. I felt something warm
flowing into me as my vaginal muscles spasmed with
undreamed of pleasure. And it wasn't just the void between
my legs, which had come alive; it was nearly every fiber of
my body. Was this what all women felt when they made love?
If it was, I could be hard pressed to maintain my resolve.

Lance left for a golf match after he had finished with me,
reminding me only that I needed to be dressed for the
reunion party by six. Once again, he had laid out what he
wanted me to wear. Once alone, I lifted the sheer dress,
wondering if there was enough material in it to keep me
legal.

I had the afternoon to myself, since Lance's housekeeper,
Mrs. Campbell, was only there Monday through Friday during
the day. I used the time to take yet another shower and
dressed again in the skimpy casual outfit I had been given
that morning. I suppose I could have put on anything in the
closet, but a quick inspection of my new wardrobe revealed
nothing but skimpy, sexy outfits.

I realized as I puttered around the kitchen looking for
something to eat that Lance had not prohibited me from
looking for the odd little statue. If I found it, perhaps I
could drink more of the potion and change myself back into
my male self. After a brunch consisting of a few leftovers
I found in the refrigerator, I set out to find it, or at
least find the potion he had given me.

I wasn't sure if the potion he had given me and my friends
had come out of the statue or whether the statue was some
sort of a catalyst, but I suspected that without the ugly
little cuss, any chance of being changed back into our
rightful selves was nonexistent. My search didn't turn up
the statue, but I did find a medium-sized floor safe in
Lance's study. The safe was easily large enough to contain
the statue, but there was no way of getting to it.

As for the potion, I found nothing in the house that might
be the potent agent Lance had given us. If it was outside
the statue, it was well hidden. I really didn't think it
was anywhere but in the statue. I knew there was little
chance that Lance would divulge the combination to me, and
I certainly lacked any way of forcing him to give it to me.
It was beginning to look as if there was no way out of my
new life. And by the time I might accidentally find access
to his safe, I would probably be so forced into my new role
that I'd no longer have the nerve to resist him.

As he had required of me, I was all ready for Lance when he
returned. In spite of the fact that I had never dressed up
as a woman before, I seemed to understand instinctively
what to do. My hair and makeup were perfect, and the dress
I wore was black, short and sexy, complemented by black
stockings and heels, which were advertised to be three and
a half inches high. Lance gave me nothing more than an
approving glance before getting ready himself.

If I was stuck as a woman, I thought as we drove in Lance's
BMW to the party, I only wished that Lance acted as good as
he looked. I was startled to realize that my new body had
given me a new perspective on the appearance of a man. Even
though in my mind, I found what Lance was doing to me
absolutely abhorrent, I couldn't help but appreciate his
appearance, especially with the way my body had been made
to respond to him.

I suppose we made the proverbial "handsome couple" as we
walked into the reunion, but I was too upset to notice.
This would be the first time anyone other than Lance saw me
in my new role. As Dan, my classmates had been warm and
friendly to me, impressed with my success and comfortable
around me. What would they think of Vanessa?

I didn't have to wait long to find out.

I was disliked. No, that isn't strong enough; I was hated.
As nearly as I could tell, the Vanessa everyone remembered
had been a stuck-up little bitch who had zeroed in on Lance
for one reason: the money. Of course along the way, the
woman I had become had done her best to steal every other
girl's boyfriend and then dropped them. She had retainers
instead of friends. Women hated her for what she
represented, and men hated her because they couldn't have
her and she let them know it. I was forced to stay close to
Lance for my own protection. I could see from the look on
his face that he was enjoying my discomfort immensely.

Then I spotted Lucia and Teri. They were filling plates
with cheese and crackers and other available snacks. Or I
should say Teri was filling hers - practically to
overflowing. Lucia merely watched in horror as her formerly
male friend prepared to pig out while she nibbled nervously
on a small carrot stick. I broke away from Lance - he
wasn't really paying any attention to me anyway - and
joined my two transformed friends. I knew from what Lance
had told me that I would at least be able to talk to them
about what had happened.

"So Joyce got you, too," Teri observed sadly, a few crumbs
of crackers falling from her mouth and perching on her
overexposed breasts.

"I'm afraid so," I sighed as I grabbed a piece of cheese,
realizing for the first time how little I had eaten that
day.

Perhaps my new female body required less food. It was more
likely, though, that my forced womanhood had simply ruined
my appetite. Besides, I didn't know if I would ever get
used to the faint taste of lipstick mixed with my food. How
did women stand it?

"Then there is no hope for us," Lucia nearly cried in her
heavy accent. "We will be like this forever. We can't talk
about it except with each other, and even if we could, no
one would ever believe what has been done to us."

"We can fight what she's done," I countered. "We don't have
to give in."

 "Oh sure!" she spat. "Like I don't have to do whatever
Ricardo says. The big prick - he is an animal. He... he..."
She broke down into a soft sob.

Teri put a hand on her bare shoulder. "You don't have to
say it," she told her. "Judging from what Ray expects from
me, I can imagine." She looked at me. "I suspect you know,
too."

I just silently nodded, thinking about how many times I had
been taken and in how many ways since my transformation. I
would spread my legs or open my lips for Lance whenever he
demanded me to do so. I had no choice. To make it even more
terrible, my body would tremble with excitement as it was
taken, even when my mind wanted to resist.

"Then you know Lucia's right," Teri went on, correctly
gauging my thoughts. "We can't fight it. She - he -
whatever - has made all of us crave sex. He's made Lucia
here so timid she's practically afraid on her own shadow.
And I just can't seem to get enough food. I suppose in a
few months, I'll be downright fat. I barely got into this
dress tonight. And you, I hear around the room that
you're..."

Her voice trailed off as she saw the anger in my eyes. "Let
me guess. Everyone thinks I'm a sly but ignorant bitch who
married Lance for his money but probably fucks the pool boy
when he's not at home."

Teri popped another cheese-covered cracker into her mouth
and nodded. "That about covers it," she agreed, her words
muffled as she chewed.

Before I could respond, I heard several people near the
entrance raise their voiced to greet an arriving classmate.
I realized with a sick feeling that it was Pete. I wanted
so badly to talk to him, but judging from Pete's
popularity, I wouldn't have the opportunity. Besides, what
could I say to him anyway? As far as he was concerned, I
was Vanessa - the class bitch. And there was nothing I'd be
able to say to him that would change his mind, since Lance
had only allowed me to talk to members of the gang...

Members of the gang...

When had Joyce started school in Mendoza? It had been the
fall of our senior year - just before Pete had his
accident. As far as she would have been concerned, the Gang
of Four was "the gang." But those of us who were called
"the gang" remembered that Pete was one of us before the
accident. Joyce as Lance had allowed me to talk to the
gang, but had not defined its membership. As long as I
considered Pete a member of the gang, could I talk to him -
tell him the truth? I had to find out.

I waited for a moment when he might be alone, scarcely able
to control myself. To make matters worse, I found myself
being distracted by some of the more handsome members of
the class. Unless I was able to find some way out of this
mess, I had no doubt I'd be fair game for every guy on the
make before very long. That, of course, would give "Lance"
the opportunity to divorce me and set me adrift both
friendless and penniless. Pete had studied the same texts
Joyce had access to, and if there was any way to regain our
previous lives, Pete was our only hope.

At last it happened. Pete excused himself to go to the
restroom. I followed him out of the room and away from the
party. "Pete!" I called out just before he was able to
swing his wheelchair into the entrance to the men's room
where I could no longer follow him.

He turned, a look of surprise changing swiftly to one
bordering on disgust. "Vanessa. Or should I call you Mrs.
Marshall?" His tone was cold, and for a moment, I nearly
lost my resolve.

"I need to talk to you, Pete."

"Oh? And what could the 'pig on wheels' have to talk to you
about?"

"What?" I asked, both confused and dismayed at his tone.

"I understand that's the name you had for me at a luncheon
with the president of Mendoza College."

"Please, Pete," I pleaded. "That wasn't me."

"Oh? Your evil twin, perhaps?"

I knelt down as best I could in the tight dress and heels
so I would be eye to eye with my old friend.

"Pete, I'm not who you think I am. No! Don't go! Please,
Pete, you've read all of Dr. Hamilton's books. You've
studied the gods the Roman army worshiped. At least listen
to me."

At the mention of Dr. Hamilton's books, Pete swung his
chair back in my direction. The look of disgust had been
replaced by one of mild curiosity. "Books about ancient
gods? That's not exactly your style, Vanessa."

I felt a shiver of relief. I at least had his attention.
This was a subject close to his heart. He might hate me for
things he thought I had said and the person he believed me
to be, but I was at least talking about something he
understood and even appreciated.

I shot a glance back at the entrance to the ballroom,
afraid that Lance would come looking for me any moment. If
he suspected for an instant what I was doing, he'd make
sure that I could never talk to Pete again.

"It... it will take some time to explain," I told him. "Can
I... call you at the first of the week? I need to see you
when my... husband isn't around."

A skeptical mask passed over his face. "I'm hardly able
to... perform for you, Vanessa."

"No!" I said quickly, understanding his meaning. "It's
nothing like that. Please, Pete. Just give me an hour of
your time. I'll call you on Monday and let you know when I
can break away."

His expression softened just a little. "Then I'd better
give you my private cell number..."

"I already have it," I told him - to his considerable
surprise. Good. I had added one more element to the
mystery. If there was one thing Pete had come to enjoy in
his years of confinement, it was a good mystery.

I returned to the party, relieved to see that "Lance" was
tied up with several of the more influential members of our
class. It saddened me as well to realize that just a day
earlier; I would have been counted in that group. I
returned to talk with Teri and Lucia but told them nothing
of my conversation with Pete. I couldn't take the chance
that they might say something to their husbands that would
somehow get back to Lance. We spoke little to each other,
but in our mutual misery, it was good to know that at least
the three of us remembered who we had been. I vowed to
myself that we would never lose those memories, no matter
what happened to us.

I went through hell waiting for Monday when I could call
Pete. For a former woman, Joyce in Lance's body had
certainly embraced the male libido. His demands seemed
insatiable, and I was beginning to think I was good for one
thing only - sex. An even more terrible aspect to the
situation was that I was growing to enjoy it and almost
looked forward to it. I was learning to control my body in
ways that enhanced my on pleasure.

Once I had overcome the initial shock of finding myself
changed into a woman, I began to develop a strange
appreciation for my new form. It's difficult to explain. I
guess the best way to describe it is to say that as a
woman, the interface between my mind and my body was
substantially different. As a man, I lived with a sense of
physical power, which was simple to project. Sexual
authority was concentrated in a small part of my body, and
when it hardened, it seemed almost to draw sensation away
from the rest of my being. It was as if the blood rushing
to my penis carried with it every important sensation I had
ever known, concentrating them into that relatively small
tube of flesh.

Now, as a woman, it was as if all of those sensations had
been miraculously reversed. First, my whole sense of being
was as something part of a larger whole. I no longer
sported a physically strong body. Instead, my body seemed
more vulnerable and required adornment to give it any sense
of power over physically stronger men. I found myself
catching glances of myself in mirrors, fussing with stray
tufts of hair and feeling the urge to perfect the makeup I
was now required by my "husband" to wear at all times. The
feel of soft, silky fabrics drawn tightly over my smooth
skin seemed to kindle something within me that was
powerfully sexual.

And then there was sex. It's difficult for me even now to
objectively describe the sensations my body was exposed to
when having sex. Although I might let the expression
"making love" slip out in reference to my experiences with
Joyce/Lance. Assuredly, there was no love involved in the
process. My sexual encounters were designed to be part of
my punishment. The fact that I learned to take perverse
pleasure from the encounters meant only that I had to do so
in my own defense. Otherwise, whatever remained of my true
self would have been crushed without hope of recovery.

So I learned to force myself to take pleasure from the
sexual unions to keep some hold on my sanity. While this
might sound like a contradiction, it was not. Only when I
managed to extract pleasure from my new sex could I
maintain my sanity. I learned to control my muscles to
heighten the sexual electricity, which coursed through my
feminine nervous system, sending pleasure to the parts of
my body that needed the experience. I learned to caress
myself when Lance was pounding into me with only his own
pleasure in mind. I learned how to heighten the intensity
of a mild orgasm until it spread pleasure throughout my
body, allowing me to forget if only for a moment the nature
of the monster who was taking my body.

But with that pleasure came a terrible price. I was
beginning to appreciate men's bodies in ways I could never
imagined just a few days earlier. Handsome men on TV,
passersby in the neighborhood, and even the two swarthy men
from the lawn service who came Monday morning to cut the
grass nearly had me damp between my legs as they removed
their T-shirts exposing their sweating chests. I was well
on my way to becoming a slut in my mind as well as in my
body. If I didn't find some way to control myself, the next
time the lawn was mowed, I might find myself offering each
of the men something cool to drink and a way to relax...

The ring of the phone brought me back to the present,
causing me to jump. I picked it up quickly, hoping that it
was Pete. I had called his office that morning, leaving a
message on his voice mail. Then, I had begun my vigil,
waiting for him to return the call. Two other calls earlier
had been false alarms. If this wasn't Pete, I didn't know
what I was going to do. The men mowing the lawn were
preying on my mind more and more.

"Hello?"

"Vanessa?" My heart jumped in my breast. It was Pete! "Can
you talk now?"

I listened carefully for Mrs. Campbell, the housekeeper. I
could hear noises from the kitchen as she cleaned up from
breakfast. She was too far away to hear. "Yes, I can talk,"
I replied breathlessly. "I was afraid you wouldn't call."

"You asked for an hour of my time. Are you free for lunch?"

Lunch? Yes, I was free. Lance was out on business all day.
But what if someone saw Pete and me together? Would they
tell Lance? Would Lance figure out the loophole he had
unintentionally left me? I had to be cautious.

"Vanessa?"

"Oh! Yes. Yes, I'm free for lunch, but what if someone sees
us?"

"We'll meet in my office," he suggested. "Just bring
something for us to eat. Try Lonnie's Bar-B-Que over on
Fifth Street. I'll take the pork rib sandwich with extra
fries and the rancho beans."

My stomach turned. Why did Pete insist upon eating himself
into an early grave? But I answered, "Okay. I'll be there
at noon."

To this day, I don't care for barbeque, and I think it's
because I watched with disgust as the grease from Pete's
meal threatened to soak all the way through the waxed paper
sack and onto the gray leather seats of the Lexus SUV. I
found slim pickings for myself. I was sure that somewhere
in Lance's control over me, he had inserted the compulsion
to remain slim and attractive. I had ordered for myself
something billed as a tuna salad sandwich, but the pasty-
looking filling separated from the bread by wilted lettuce
was about the standard for an elementary school lunch. But
the food was of little importance to me. I had merely
ordered quickly to get out of the sleazy little restaurant
before the waiter and the few patrons could finish mentally
undressing me. To make it worse, the waiter did look nice
and strong...

Lance was waiting for me. He had cleared off a space on his
cluttered desk and set a Diet Coke in front of my chair
while he enjoyed a glass of the strong, heavily sweetened
tea I knew he always kept in the small refrigerator in his
office.

"I'm afraid this is all I can offer you to drink, Vanessa,"
he said somewhat snidely as I sat our lunches on the desk.
"The wine steward has the day off."

"Diet coke will do fine," I replied as civilly as I could
while I sat as primly as I could.

I had tried to dress in a way he would not expect Vanessa
to dress, but I had failed. There was simply nothing in my
closet that could be considered demure. Everything was
designed to show off as much cleavage or leg as possible.
Still, I had found a yellow sundress, which I had buttoned
all the way to the top, and the one-inch heels I wore were
not out of place on campus.

"Now what can I do for you?" he asked, paying more
attention to the sandwich in the sack than to me. I could
tell I would have a difficult time convincing him that I
wasn't just the slut he thought me to be.

"Pete, I have a story to tell you. I only ask that you
don't interrupt until I'm finished."

I could see his mind working. That would give him plenty of
time to wolf down his lunch. "Okay, Vanessa, it's your
dime."

So I began...

I hurried through the story without stopping to try my own
lunch. In the first place, I wasn't really hungry; I was
too nervous. But more importantly, I didn't want Pete to
interrupt my story with protests that I had to be out of my
mind. I told him the story - the whole story - before ever
giving him a chance to speak.

About half way through my tale, I began to worry that he
was just humoring me. I began to wish he would interrupt so
I would at least know he was really listening to what I
said. When I got to the part about the statue Lance had and
the magical properties it represented, he gave me a hopeful
sign - he actually set down the quarter of a sandwich he
had left and listened to every word by leaning forward in
his wheelchair.

When I had finished, I let out a deep breath and asked,
"Well?"

Pete was silent for a moment before replying, "So according
to you, we were best friends in high school?"

"That's right!" I insisted. "All of us - you, Steve, Terry,
Lance and I - were good friends back then. We were the Gang
of Five. Well, Gang of Four after your accident."

"And yet I don't remember any of you."

I had been developing a theory on the shifts in reality.
Now was a good time to test it. "Pete, who were your good
friends in high school?"

"Well, there was..." His voice trailed off as he got a
strange look in his eyes. "It's funny. I can remember
having friends, but no particularly good friends."

I smiled in triumph. "That's because Joyce wasn't really
able to change the past; she could only change our
perceptions of the past. Physical reality only changed for
Steve, Terry and me. Maybe no magic is strong enough to
change all of reality, so the magical shift took some
shortcuts. The rest of the shift is composed of false
memories."

Pete drummed his fingers on his desk for a moment, lost in
thought. "That might explain the biggest hole in your
story," he said at last.

"What hole?"

Pete slipped into his college professor persona. "Let's
assume just for a moment that everything you've told me is
true. If this statue was so powerful - or perhaps I should
say the potion inside it - why was it that the Romans who
originally possessed it were unable to use it to assure
themselves victory over their enemies and eventual
prosperity? The answer, of course, is that no matter
whoever or whatever they changed with the potion, it didn't
change true reality around them - only the perception of
reality." His eyes lit up. "Describe the statue."

"I didn't get a really clear look at it," I admitted.
"Lance obviously didn't want me to touch it. It looked...
sort of like a person, but it was short and sort of squat
with a slightly skewed face...Oh! And the ears seemed
pointed."

"An Alf!" he declared.

I was confused. "Alf? You mean like in that stupid old TV
show with the puppet who was supposed to be an alien?"

"Careful," Pete warned. "You're starting to sound as stupid
and uneducated as the Vanessa I do remember."

I fought the impulse to shoot him an angry glare, but I
couldn't entirely hide my ire at the insult.

"All right," he conceded. "I suppose most people don't know
what an Alf is. But I'm sure you've heard of elves."

"Elves?" I scoffed. "Like in the fairy tales?"

"What? You don't believe in elves but you do believe in
magic potions which change men's sex?" he returned with
feigned surprise.

"Point well taken," I admitted.

"Yes," Pete grinned, "but in a way, I can understand why
you've never heard of them. Alfs - or elves if you prefer -
came in a variety of sizes and shapes. There were actually
several subgroups of them in Germanic folklore. Some made
magical weapons. They were called the Black Elves. Others
granted wishes to humans, but sometimes the wishes got a
little twisted around so that the wisher got screwed."

"And you think this statue of Lance's might be a statue of
one of these Alfs?" I asked.

Pete shook his head. "No, I think it may actually be an
Alf. It may have been petrified by a spell and the potion
may be its very blood."

My natural curiosity was piqued. "What makes you think it
isn't really a statue?"

He smiled. "Because the vast majority of the Roman military
cults were completely ineffective. If they had been potent,
we would probably all be speaking Latin today. But there
are stories in Germanic folklore about impish elves whose
diabolical magic occasionally got turned against them.
Statue spells were common among those legends, so my guess
is that our little friend came up against a magic wielder
more powerful than himself and was petrified as a
punishment. The problem is that whatever diabolical magic
the Alf possessed was probably encased with him in statue
form.

"Then enter the Romans. Somehow, they got their hands on
the Alf. Maybe whoever or whatever transformed it into a
statue sold it to them, knowing its magical ability was
limited."

"You sound as if you've believed in things like this all
along," I commented.

This time, he actually laughed. "You can't study the things
I've studied and not come to believe in them. There are
just too many stories that ring true. Besides, many people
believe in magic. The Bible is full of it."

"But you're talking about miracles - not magic," I pointed
out.

He shook his head. "Honestly, I think the Vanessa persona
is taking over your mind. Think about what you just said.
What is the difference between a miracle and magic? Turning
a woman into salt, raising the dead, feeding the
multitudes, and virgin births all smack of something
outside the realm of science. Now I'm not discounting
anyone's religious beliefs, but couldn't you call these
things magic - even if they were inspired by God? The only
difference with our Alf is that God had nothing to do with
it - or at least we don't want to believe He did."

I had never really thought of it that way before. It was a
chilling thought to realize that magic could be going on
around us all the time while we just ignored it. In a way,
that was how our reality had been shifted. Maybe if people
thought long enough and hard enough and allowed their
natural prejudices against magic to be set aside, they
might remember that I had once been Dan instead of Vanessa.
But when I stood before them in a short skirt and heels, it
was just easier for them to accept that I had always been a
woman.

"All right," I said at last. "But what can be done about
it? Will you help us get our real lives back?" I waited
anxiously for my old friend to answer.

At last, Pete replied, "I'll look into it. If you're
telling me the truth, Vanessa, it wouldn't do me any good
to go barging in on your husband without a plan. As it
stands, we would have to get our hands on the statue to
have any chance of success. I doubt if Lance would part
with it without a fight."

"But can't you tell someone?" I pleaded. "Can't you get
help? I don't know how long I can stay sane when Lance
is..." My voice trailed off. I was too embarrassed to tell
Pete much of the conflict that was going on inside me. The
more I mentally fought to retain my identity, the more my
body needed - craved - Lance's sexual attention. Soon -
perhaps within days - I would have to retreat to a corner
of my own mind and let Vanessa the Slut have her way. It
was a terrifying thought.

I could tell from the look on his face that Pete was torn.
How could I blame him? If I had been in his shoes, I would
have been, too. My story was simply too preposterous for
anyone to believe - anyone except...

My eyes locked on Pete's. While his face showed that
conflicting thoughts were raging through his mind, his eyes
showed something more constant. I had only been a woman a
few days, but I had learned already that the eyes were the
true window not only to the soul but to the heart as well.
Pete's eyes spoke volumes to me. He remembered a girl named
Vanessa and not an old friend named Dan, and what he
remembered was that he had once loved this girl. That was
why he had been so bitter around me.

What did he really remember? Pete had been a star athlete -
maybe even with the makings of a professional. And then the
accident happened. The Vanessa he remembered insulted him -
made fun of his disabilities. But what about before the
accident? Had they been friends? Had they even been lovers?
I doubted if they had gone that far, but Vanessa had come
to represent in Pete's mind all that he had lost and could
never have again.

I couldn't ask him about it. To do so might break the
tenuous bond we had created, but I could imagine the false
memories inside his head. Did he remember dating Vanessa
before the accident? If so, the hurtful remarks he
remembered her - me - saying to him would have been all the
more devastating. And to make matters worse, the pain told
me he was still in love with the person I had become.

My God, not only was I asking him to help me after all the
things he believed I had said and done to him, but I was
asking him to return me to my rightful life, completely
destroying the woman he still cared for. I wanted to say
something more, but I couldn't think of anything to say.

At last, Pete spoke. "Vanessa, I'll move on this as quickly
as I can, but as I think you must realize, the information
we seek is a little obscure."

"Can you call me on Saturday?" I asked desperately. "Lance
is going to be in Fresno all day on business, and Mrs.
Campbell doesn't work on weekends."

"I don't know if that will be enough time," he said slowly.
Then he saw the look of desperation in my eyes. "But all
right. I'll call you."

Impulsively, I jumped up from my seat and leaned over to
kiss his cheek. It was a girlish thing to do - proof that
whatever had been done to me had changed more than just my
body, but I didn't regret doing it for a minute. That is,
until I thought about it on my way back to my car.

It wasn't that I regretted the kiss itself. It was at most
sisterly. What I regretted was what the kiss told me. They
say that death has an odor. I can attest to the veracity of
that statement, for the smell of death was on Pete. It was
like the smell of meat just before it spoils - nothing
certain but just a hint of what is to come. Selfishly I
realized that whatever was going to happen must happen
quickly. If anything happened to Pete, my friends and I
would be trapped in our new identities forever.

Each passing day unfolded, as I had feared it would. Lance
delighted in making me more and more his subservient toy.
However his debasement of me wasn't based on some childish
male fantasy. Having grown up as a woman, he had never been
exposed to the "dress up" games involving latex outfits,
French maid costumes and the like. No, what he did to me
was more subtle but far more insidious than that. If I had
been forced to dress in a skimpy maid's costume, I might
have been able to separate the fantasy role from the real
person I had become. But it was impossible to separate my
true self from the woman who woke up each morning with a
hunger to be ravished even more completely than she had
been the night before.

I was beginning to live for sex. I longed to be penetrated;
to spread my legs or open my mouth whenever I could to
receive Lance, in spite of how much my mind loathed him.
And to make things even worse, I was starting to feel
almost as if Lance wasn't enough. I was becoming addicted
not only to sex but to the very thought of sex.

Still, I managed to hold on to the unraveling threads of my
sanity. Pete had given me hope, no matter how slender, and
I vowed will my remaining willpower to not give in to my
new identity until Pete had a chance to rescue me and my
friends.

He promised to reach me that very day, I reminded myself as
I sat in the kitchen on that Saturday morning drinking
coffee. I was by myself. Lance had left earlier for Fresno
and, course, Mrs. Campbell didn't work weekends. Since I
was alone, I hadn't even bothered to dress. I sat in
solitude in the kitchen, wearing only a flimsy turquoise
negligee with a matching cover, which displayed more than
it covered. It was the sort of outfit Lance preferred me to
wear to bed, and I was beginning to find myself comfortable
wearing such outfits more and more. Perhaps this was the
first step on the way to eventual French maid attire, I
told myself grimly. After all, how many women must really
wear such provocative outfits to sleep in? The problem was
it felt "right" to wear something this sexy. I just hoped
Lance's increasingly male mind wouldn't expect me to wear
anything even more provocative.

Although I would not have thought it possible, Lance was
becoming even more of a beast with each passing day. I
didn't think it was the original Lance's personality taking
over, though. Instead, I suspected that Joyce's female
experience had ill prepared her for the constant doses of
testosterone, which now flowed through her male body. Men -
most men at least - grow up understanding the demands their
hormones produce and develop the ability to control them.
Joyce as certainly not like most men.

Perhaps hormones were also responsible for some of my
attraction to men. Just as Joyce lacked the experience to
be a male, I lacked the experience to be a female. Perhaps
my almost universal attraction to men was not entirely
Joyce's doing. Or perhaps my newly feminized body was
simply reaching out to find the right male partner. I
shuddered at the thought of being married to Lance.

I was expecting a phone call, but the phone remained quiet.
Perhaps Pete had had second thoughts about helping me. The
thought nagged at me as I nervously drank my coffee. After
all, it had been touch and go enlisting his help. Without
me there to personally beg for assistance, perhaps he had
dismissed my story as the fabrication of a beautiful but
obviously disturbed woman. I tried to picture myself - my
old self - sitting in my office in San Francisco as a
quite-probably deranged woman poured out a fantastic story
of transformation and revenge. Would I believe such a tale?
I doubted it.

I poured myself another cup of coffee. I knew it was making
me into a nervous wreck. I was drinking even more coffee
than I had as a man, but I had to have something to do with
myself as I waited for Pete's call. If I kept drinking at
the current rate, I'd have to make another pot.

It was just as I began to give up any hope of help from
Pete that the doorbell rang. I wasn't expecting anyone. I
glanced around the corner toward the foyer. Beyond the
pebbled glass sidelight, I could see a large shape sitting
there.

"Oh God!" I cried out loud. "It's Pete!"

I hadn't expected him to actually come out to the house.
What if someone saw him? No, it probably wouldn't matter, I
realized. After all, I could hardly be accused by a nosey
neighbor of having a sexual affair with Pete, since he was
completely paralyzed from the waist down. But what if one
of Lance's neighbors did see him there? Lance would be
suspicious immediately. And Lance might figure out that I
had managed to find help.

I used the intercom to ask Pete to wait for just a moment
and quickly rushed back into the bedroom to find a robe
that was a little more demure. It was one thing to be
sitting at the kitchen table with my very female body
enticingly exposed as I drank my coffee. It was quite
another thing to display that body to Pete. I settled on
the first opaque robe I could find. It was still short,
coming down only to my knees, but at least I didn't look
like a model out of a Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue
anymore.

That didn't stop Pete from casting an appreciative glance
at me as I opened the door. "Nice robe," he muttered as I
blushed. I was certain that from his angle of sight in his
wheelchair, he had caught a glimpse of what I was wearing
under the robe.

"Why didn't you just call?" I asked him as I ushered him
into the kitchen hoping no one had seen him.

"I was really going to call just to humor you," he admitted
as he accepted a cup of coffee from me. He tasted it and
set the cup on the kitchen table.

"How's the coffee?" I asked, nervously filling the empty
pot with water to make a new batch. "I'm afraid that was
the last of the pot. It might be a little strong."

Pete shook his head, taking another drink. "No, don't
worry; it's fine."

I sat down at the table next to Pete. "Why were you just
going to humor me?"

"After you left, I began to have second thoughts," Pete
explained. "The idea of an actual Alf just seemed too
preposterous. I really didn't believe you before
yesterday."

"And what changed your mind?" I asked, clutching the robe a
little closer to better hide my ample cleavage.

"I consulted an old friend of mine in Berlin," he told me.
"It seems as if a very old Alf statue went missing a couple
of years ago from a museum in Germany. The officials
tracked down the thieves but it took time. They're both in
prison now. But the strange thing my friend told me was
that the two thieves claimed to be each other."

"Each other?"

Pete nodded. "That's right. Both men claimed they had been
somehow switched into each other's body. Of course, the
authorities dismissed it as an attempt on the part of the
thieves to use mental incompetence as a defense. European
courts are a little less naïve when it comes to such a
defense, but defendants still try it there. But from what
you've told me, perhaps they were telling the truth."

"And the statue disappeared," I surmised.

"Yes, exactly. The authorities never found it."

And as innocuous as the statue was, few people who saw it
would have any idea of its value. It looked like one of the
lawn gnomes that had been left to the elements too long.

"So by the time Joyce was able to see it, the person who
possessed it had no idea of its value," I guessed.

"That's presumably so," Pete agreed. "Or maybe the man who
possessed it knew enough to get rid of it."

"Rid of it? With the power it gives to its owner?" I asked.

Pete took a long swallow of coffee as he shook his head.
"Yes, it can give power, but remember that it can also
cause immense mischief. That would be especially true if
the statue were actually a petrified Alf. Alfs could be
very much like Tricksters. In fact, Loki - the Trickster of
Norse mythology - is often associated with them. Some
legends even name him their king."

"Yes, I see what you mean," I said slowly.

In a way, Joyce had fallen a victim to their mischief. Once
she had seen swapped into Lance's body, her mania for
revenge had been perverted by Lance's basest nature until
she had become the very thing she hated - a man preoccupied
with sexual dominance over women. If the original Joyce
could see what a perverted caricature of manhood she had
become, she would probably have hated herself. But now it
was too late for her. I only hoped it wasn't too late for
me and my friends.

"We have to find that Alf," Pete decided, interrupting my
musings.

"Then you can change us back?" I asked hopefully.

Pete hesitated for a moment. "I'm not sure. It's possible,
I suppose. The amount of the potion remaining is probably
the key. But I've also been looking into Lance's behavior.
From my sources around town, he's becoming more brutal in
his business dealings. The real Lance held many of his
weaknesses in check. But this new Lance has no experience
in being who she has become. Under the influence of the
potion, she'll become more vindictive and cruel with each
passing day. With the Alf to help her - him - there's no
telling how much damage Lance can do. The first thing we
must do is find the Alf."

I was about to point out that the Alf was securely locked
in Lance's safe in his study, but before I could, a voice
from the foyer called out, "Perhaps I can help with that."

My stomach turned as I recognized Lance's voice. Pete and I
had been so engrossed in our conversation that we hadn't
heard him come in. He was standing now at the entrance to
the kitchen, the misshapen statue in his hands.

"Don't try it, Vanessa!" he commanded as I tried to get up
and somehow wrest the statue from him. I sat back down,
unable to override his demand.

"It was very clever of you, my dear, to enlist your
crippled friend's help," Lance said smugly. "I had no idea
he had once been a member of your little gang. Ray told me
that the Gang of Four had once been the Gang of Five. It
was simple to figure out what you'd try after that."

Pete turned his chair to face Lance. I could see from his
eyes that he understood the danger he was in. There was no
way for him to challenge Lance, and Lance knew it. Lance
stood far enough away from Pete that there was no chance
for my friend to charge him and hope to retrieve the
statue. Lance knew he was firmly in control of the
situation.

"Let's go into my study where we can be more comfortable,
Professor Collins. I have some things I think you'll find
interesting. And Vanessa? Bring me a cup of coffee. You
know the way I like it."

I could see Pete had a cell phone in his chair. Why didn't
he use it? Instead, he was doing exactly what Lance told
him to do, almost as if...

Oh shit! The coffee!

When I had gotten up that morning, Lance had already left,
but he had made a pot of coffee. Pete and I had been
drinking from it. Just as Lance had originally trapped me
by causing me to drink coffee laced with the potion, I had
unwittingly trapped Pete by giving him the potion in the
pot of coffee Lance had made.

But I had no choice now but to help Lance. I was completely
under his power. And through my own stupidity, I had helped
him trap Pete as well. Helplessly, I poured a cup of coffee
from the fresh pot, lacing it with just the right amount of
cream and sugar that Lance required, and carried it into
the study for him.

The casual observer might have thought that Lance and Pete
were old friends as they sat facing each other over Lance's
impressive desk. But I was not a casual observer. I could
see Lance was looking at Pete with the eyes of a predator.
Pete, for his part, seemed immobile and impassive, but I
could see the muscles in his wide neck tensed, and detected
a tick in his face. I didn't know if Lance had frozen him
in place. I didn't think so. But Pete was treating Lance as
if he were a madman holding a gun on him. I suppose in a
way, that was exactly the situation.

"Ah, my coffee!" Lance called out as I place the cup in
front of him.

As I backed away from the desk, Lance sipped his coffee and
said, "Take a good look at Vanessa, Professor Collins. In
fact, Vanessa, take off that ridiculous robe you're
wearing. Let the good professor here feast his eyes on that
glorious body of yours!"

Of course, I had no ability to resist. Wordlessly, I peeled
back the robe, allowing it to fall to the floor, feeling
the cool morning air on my breasts, as the thin material
did nothing to protect them. I could feel my nipples rise
and knew that both Pete and Lance could see them clearly. I
dropped my eyes in embarrassment.

"She's quite a looker, isn't she, Professor? I'd treat you
to her, but in your condition, I doubt if you could really
appreciate her considerable sexual talents."

I felt my face flush. I couldn't look up.

"It would be interesting, though, if she could do anything
for you," Lance continued. "It would be instructive for her
and sort of a one last time for you..."

"Then you intend to kill me?" Pete asked the question so
calmly I had to wonder once again if Lance had already
exerted his powers over him.

Lance leaned back, taking a long drink of his coffee. "Kill
you?" he laughed. "Now where would the fun be in that? No,
Professor, I'm going to do something better. Since my dear
wife here considers you to be a member of their little
'gang', I'm going to allow you to share their fate."

Lance was silent for a moment, letting that sink in. Then,
he went on, "But of course someone in your condition might
actually consider being changed into an attractive young
woman like Vanessa here to be a step up in the world. That
wouldn't do at all. After all, the purpose of your
transformation would be meaningless then. I have no desire
to reward you any more than I rewarded your former
friends."

With his concentration, on Pete, I found I had some freedom
of movement. I used it to speak. "Please, Lance," I begged
him. "Let him go..."

"Shut up!"

I jumped in terror as he turned to me with a look of fury
on his face. His words burned into me, and I knew I could
no longer utter a word. I don't know if my limbs were
frozen or not, because I was too frightened to move them.

"Sorry about that interruption, Professor," he said,
turning calmly back to Pete. "Now where was I? Oh! I know.
I was about to tell you of your fate. You see, in the last
few months, I've come into contact with some very unsavory
individuals. Some of them deal in very special commodities.
Why, I know of one who actually procures limbless young
women to use as whores. Can you imagine anyone being so
perverted as to seek out such a helpless woman just for
sex?"

My stomach turned. I had known from personal experience
that Lance was a degenerate, but never in my wildest
nightmares had I imagined him to be so depraved. He spoke
of perversion, and yet here he was willing to transform and
sell Pete into prostitution as a limbless play toy. I
hadn't thought it possible, but my hatred for him increased
a hundredfold. It was sick enough to think of someone who
would actually be turned on by such a helpless person and
use them to feed their sexual depravity, but to imagine
someone with the power to create such an individual was
mind-boggling.

"Yes," Lance chuckled wickedly, savoring the look of horror
and disgust on Pete's face. "I think that being a young
woman without arms or legs is exactly right for you. It's a
rather poetic fate for you, don't you think?" He nodded his
head at Pete as he had nodded his head at me just a few
days earlier beginning my transformation.

Exactly what happened next happened too quickly to describe
completely. I thought I saw Pete's useless legs begin to
start to become insubstantial, but perhaps I just saw them
move. I learned later that people who are condemned to
wheelchairs often build up powerful muscles in their arms
as compensation. It permits them to move their crippled
body without the use of their legs. With that in mind, what
I may have seen was Pete pushing himself up and out of his
chair, causing his useless legs to move.

Whatever the cause, I gasped in surprise as Pete managed to
throw himself up onto Lance's desk, grabbing Lance's shirt
and pulling him out of his chair. There was a loud crash as
the Alf was pushed to the floor, its fragile surface
whether petrified by magic or made of true stone shattered
as it hit the hardwood floor. The dark potion it had
contained spilled onto the wood, mingling with the small
bits of stone to form a reddish paste.

As the struggle between Pete and Lance intensified, I
searched desperately for something with which to salvage
the unexpectedly small amount of the potion, which
remained, but there was nothing near enough for me to use.
At last, I remembered my robe. I picked it up and threw it
on the remains of the Alf. I watched hopefully as its light
color began to change to a brownish red in the patches
where the magical fluid was salvaged.

Then I heard a scream. To my consternation, it came from
Pete. He fell back into his chair, releasing Lance. The
scream ebbing into a moan, he clutched at his chest,
clawing at his shirt as if to dig into his very heart. I
had never seen a man experience a heart attack before, but
I knew from the ashen expression on his face and the
desperation with which he grabbed at his chest with a meaty
hand that it was a massive attack. With a look of
disbelief, the breath pushed out of his large body and his
hand went suddenly slack.

"Pete!" I screamed, realizing that my friend was dead. I
turned to Lance. "You bastard! You've killed him!"

Lance was pale, barely able to hold himself off the desk
with trembling arms. "Vanessa..."

I ran to Pete's side, hoping against hope that I would find
him breathing. But I could tell by the surprised open eyes
and the slack unmoving mouth that he was dead. "Pete... oh,
Pete!" I cried.

"I'm here, Vanessa..." Lance gasped. "It's me... Pete. I'm
here..."

I looked up in shock in time to see Lance collapse on the
desk. What had he said? He had said that he was Pete. But
how?

"Pete?" I asked slowly, unable to understand what was
happening.

Lance seemed to recover just a little, forcing himself back
into his chair. "I switched bodies with him," Lance said
weakly. "It was the only way. I'm sorry, Vanessa, but it
was the only way..."

There was something in the way he said it that made me
believe it. I guess it was because he said he was sorry.
Joyce-as-Lance would never be sorry for her/his actions, no
matter how heinous. I rushed to his side, propping up his
lolling head. "Pete... but how?"

"I'm a virgin," Pete admitted. "My car accident back in
high school... I wasn't able to... perform after that. From
what I've read, virginity coupled with the potion equals a
powerful magic."

I thought of what Joyce had told me. She had admitted that
her virginity had been an important element when she
managed to switch bodies and become Lance. "But how did you
know how to... change with Lance?"

I knew, of course, that Lance had expected Pete to visit me
while he was supposedly gone on business. The whole thing
had been a trap. The coffee he had prepared that morning
wasn't really for me - it was for Pete if he showed up.
Pete must have realized when Lance came home unexpectedly
that the coffee had been laced with the potion. He
confirmed that, adding...

"I could sense the power running through me. Lance expected
me to be as passive as all of his other victims. But the
fact that I was still a virgin heightened my awareness to
the potion. I seemed to just know what to do. It was as if
I willed my soul to move outside my body and into his."

Later that morning, we found out that there was another
factor as well. When we had a chance to study Lance's
notes, we found that the potion weakened in our systems
over time and had to be renewed periodically to be most
effective. Unknown to Lance, I had made a fresh pot of
coffee; so when he had me get him a cup, he thought he was
taking more of the potion. What power he had still in his
system might have been enough to transform Pete, I suppose,
under normal circumstances, but Pete's virginity trumped
whatever power Lance still had. Pete's instinct for
survival caused him to swap bodies with Lance when his own
body began to fail. Lance had been hoisted by his own
petard.

Lance's notes revealed another problem as well. In order to
transform an individual, the wielder of the power had to be
in possession of the statue of the Alf.

"But the statue is broken," I said dejectedly.

"True," Pete admitted, "but there might be enough residual
power in my system to effect a transformation. Do you want
to be male again?"

I did, but the potion was circulating in my system as well,
and whatever communion with the power of the Alf was there
told me that there wouldn't be enough magic left to
transform me or my friends. But perhaps there was enough
power left to remove the psychological changes Lance had
made to us. I explained this to Pete.

It was strange to see a benevolent expression on Lance's
face. I supposed I would have to get used to calling Pete
"Lance" now since I was the only one who would realize the
truth.

"It should work," the new Lance agreed. "I feel as if I
have enough strength to remove the psychological
alterations at least. But I think you're right. There just
isn't enough of the potion in any of us to allow for
physical changes."

Then I remembered my robe. "What about this?" I asked,
picking up the robe and showing him the stain.

Lance shook his head. "No, there isn't any way of getting
the potion out of the material without diluting it. There's
no telling what effect that would have." He paused for a
moment. "Vanessa, can you deal with being a woman... for
the rest of your life?"

It was a question I had been asking myself since the moment
of my transformation. Strangely enough, the answer was yes
- now. Lance - Joyce-as-Lance - had changed me to punish
me; to drive me mad. His plan might have worked. But after
what I had already gone through, I felt certain things
would only get better. I was no longer his slave. While I
no longer had the reputation or the benefit of an education
I had enjoyed as a man, I was at least free to create a new
life for myself. I felt sure I could do it.

I shrugged. "I guess I'll have to deal with it; won't I?"

"I'll do what I can to help," he assured me, closing his
eyes in concentration.

I shuddered as the power washed over me. New emotions
welled up inside of me. I felt disgust for what I had done
with Lance/Joyce in my new body. I felt embarrassment at my
nearly-naked state. I had to fight down the impulse to pick
up the robe, which had soaked up the last of the potion and
use it to cover myself. I felt shame for not being stronger
or smarter and resisting all that had been done to me.
Oddly enough, though, I did not feel particularly
uncomfortable in the body of a female. I suppose even a few
days as a woman had acclimated me more than I had realized.

"We have to do this for the others as well," I told
Lance/Pete once I had absorbed all of the new emotions his
work had left me with. He nodded in agreement.

From Joyce's notes, we confirmed several things. First, we
knew it wasn't enough for Lance (Pete, that is) to have the
potion in his system. If we were to change things for Lucia
and Teri, they and their husbands would have to drink some
of the potion as well. Even a small amount would create a
temporary bond. Of course, as with me, there wouldn't be
enough of the potion to transform either Lucia or Teri back
into their male selves, but there should be enough to
influence their behavior and the behavior of their spouses.

We were able to strain a small amount of the potion out of
my robe before it dried and save it in a cruet I brought
from the kitchen. That represented the last undiluted
potion in existence. I have to admit I looked at it
longingly, wondering if there was enough of the fluid to
initiate my own transformation back into a man. It was
tempting, but I had reconciled myself with the prospect of
remaining a woman for the rest of my life, even if it
wasn't my first choice. And I recalled that Pete when he
had become Lance had given me back my free will and allowed
me to escape from the personal hell Joyce had designed for
me. I could do no less than help Lucia and Teri enjoy a
better life, even if they had to experience their lives as
women. It was important to me that the last of the potion
be used for that purpose.

We didn't dare wait long. The newest Lance called Ricardo
and Ray and told them - yes, told them - he wanted to see
them that very afternoon. Both men owed their success to
Lance and would drop everything if necessary to attend him.
Lance shook his head and chuckled in amazement as he
related to me the subservient tone both men had used when
speaking with him on the phone.

Then it was my turn. I called both Lucia and Terry and
quickly told them what was going to happen. Both of my
friends were distraught that they would have to remain as
women, but both of them realized their lives would improve
shortly. In spite of their disappointment, I sensed some
relief in their voices. They were bound to come to the same
conclusion I had arrived at - that being a free woman might
not be the ideal choice but it was the best choice under
the circumstances.

Both couples arrived shortly after the authorities had left
the house. They had been investigating the circumstances of
"Pete's" death and had left with the body. We three women
met together in my kitchen as Lance met in the study with
their husbands. Lance wanted to get them to drink the
potion after which he would instruct both men in the need
to be loving but less possessive husbands.

"But they'll still be our husbands," Lucia pointed out in
her thick Latin accent. "And we will still be women."

Teri nodded with disappointment.

"It's the best we can do," I told them as we sat across the
table from each other with cups of coffee in front of us.
"Do you think I'm happy about it? Look at me. As far as the
town is concerned, I'm still the little slut who married
above herself. You each at least have your reputations."

"I suppose you're right," Teri sighed. "I'm actually a
fairly important woman around town. And Ray can be..." Her
voice trailed off.

"Can be what?" I asked.

Teri turned very, very red. "I was just going to say
that...well, when he wants to be, Ray can be..."

"Good in bed?" Lucia asked wryly. When she saw the shock on
Teri's face, she just laughed. "Don't be so embarrassed, my
friend. We were made to like having sex, were we not?"

"But... Lance... Pete can change that, right?" Teri
questioned meekly.

"Si... yes," Lucia agreed. "Our friend Vanessa has said
just that. She no longer has to pant like a little puppy
for Lance. But the question is do we want Lance to take
away our desire for our men?"

"What?" Teri and I exclaimed together.

"We are going to be women now and forever," Lucia
explained. "What good would it do to give us back our male
minds and no longer want our men? My life with Ricardo is a
good one - or it would be if Ricardo were not so
possessive. You, Teri, said yourself. You're an important
woman with Ray and he's good in bed. If he were not so
macho and cared for you as he should, would he not be worth
staying with?"

"I suppose," Teri said slowly. Then she looked at me. "But
what about you, Vanessa? He has already freed your mind.
Will you leave him now?"

I hadn't expected the question although I suppose I should
have. She was right. I was still married to Lance, and only
the three of us realized that this Lance was not the same
person he had been just a few hours earlier. In the eyes of
the law, I was Mrs. Lance Marshall. When I stopped being
Mrs. Lance Marshall, I was just another town slut.

Lance and I had been so busy since Pete had taken over that
new identity that we hadn't discussed our respective
futures at all. I could be free of Lance now if I chose.
Teri and Lucia would have that same option, but it sounded
to me as if neither of them was anxious to leave their
husbands.

Was I?

While I no longer was subjugated to the will of my husband,
I had to consider what my options really were. Joyce as
Lance had said something about a prenuptial agreement in
which I would be left with nothing. Now that Pete was in
Lance's body, would he invoke that document? He could, I
supposed, but it didn't seem to be likely. There was no
doubt that Pete had been attracted to Vanessa. Now she - I
- was his for the taking. All he had to do was tell me to
be his sexual slave and I would have no more choice in the
matter than I had had when Joyce was in Lance's body.
Again, though, it seemed unlikely and very out of character
for Pete to do something like that to me no matter how much
he thought he was attracted to me.

Lucia and Teri took their turns with Lance while I
entertained their husbands. Whatever commands the new Lance
had given to them had an immediate effect on their
personalities. On the surface, both men were the same as I
remembered them from the reunion party. But little things
they said and the way each man carried himself convinced me
that Lance had made them into kinder, gentler versions of
themselves without destroying their true personalities. Of
course, perhaps this was just the way they were before
Joyce got them under her power.

Shortly, a very different Lucia and Teri came back into the
room. Lucia seemed more confident, and I noticed she now
had the ability to speak English without a heavy accent.
Although physically unchanged, she seemed almost taller
from the confident way she moved and spoke.

Lance had actually managed to alter Teri physically,
although not much. I suspected it was as much as he was
able to do and the results were impressive. Teri was now
slimmer, although not drastically so. Her clothes fit
better and she even told me that the knowing need to eat to
excess had been taken away. She, like Lucia, seemed happy
with what had been done for her.

The gathering turned into a little party, macabre in nature
when I stopped to realize that it had only been a few hours
earlier that our tormentor had died a short distance away
while trying to compound his/her mischief. I, for one, was
glad for it. It was a joy to see my friends happy once
more. Of course their husbands had no idea of who they had
been before. Even Pete had no memory of his friends' male
lives except what I had told him. Besides, he was too busy
playing his new role as Lance to concern himself too much
with that issue.

I found, standing there in the group, that I was quite
comfortable. I had changed into a less-than-daring sweater
and skirt (the old Lance had, of course, allowed me no
slacks) and found that I could be comfortable among others
as a woman. Both Ray and Ricardo treated me with respect.
It was probably because they considered my husband to be
their mentor, but it was a welcome relief from the cold
reception most of my classmates had given me the night of
the reunion party. I was beginning to see why neither Lucia
nor Teri minded much the new roles they had been given. It
could actually be a pleasant existence, living in a small
community as the spouse of a respected man.

It wasn't until after they had left that I realized the
time for make believe was over. "Pete..." I began.

"It's Lance now," he corrected me. "Remember?"

"Yes... Lance. We need to talk about... us."

A look of mild amusement on his face turned suddenly
serious. "I suppose you're right."

"I know in everyone else's eyes we're married," I began
hesitantly, "but..."

Pete had been the best friend I ever had. How could I tell
him as Lance that I didn't want to be touched - and that I
wanted a divorce? I knew I was going to be a woman for the
rest of my life. There would be no changing that unless I
somehow managed to find another Alf statue. The odds of
that happening were too slim to calculate. But if I had to
be a woman, I wanted to be my own woman.

"You need some space," Lance prompted me.

I suppose that was one way of looking at it. Of course, I
could have told him right then that I needed more than just
space, but he had just saved me from a hellish existence.
How many damsels in distress told their white knights to
buzz off? Not many, I was sure, and the ones who did
wouldn't be worth knowing.

Still, Pete - Lance - it was so hard to get used to calling
him that since Pete's personality had so radically altered
Lance's personality - had to be as uncomfortable with our
marital situation as I was. He had already admitted he was
a virgin when the accident occurred. Now he found himself a
married man. He deserved an opportunity to go his own way;
to seek out a girl he could really love and honor her with
the role as his wife.

In spite of these thoughts, I could only nod in agreement.
"Yeah, that's right."

Lance nodded. "I understand. Don't worry; I'll set up
sleeping quarters in one of the guest rooms."

"But it's your house," I reminded him. "If anyone should
move out, it's me."

Lance nodded. "That's right; it's my house. I suppose it's
yours, too. But the difference is that I've never stayed
overnight in this house. Hell, I've never even seen Lance's
- or I suppose I should say - my master bedroom. Let's just
do it my way. A lot has changed in the last few hours. We
both need some time to absorb all of this and determine the
best course of action together."

He was right, of course. When Joyce had been Lance, he had
delighted in reminding me that if I left him, I'd be
penniless. Sure, there were the California community
property laws, but I remembered Lance had told me they
would be no impediment to cutting me off, and as a former
attorney, I knew it could be done. For Pete to be Lance,
things were simpler. All he would have to do is take the
reigns of Lance's business and real estate empire. For me,
though, there was a matter of how I was to earn a living.

I wasn't entirely noble in my thoughts. I fully intended to
get Lance to provide for me - at least long enough for me
to get an education. I wasn't even sure if I had a high
school diploma. I suspected I did not. So I'd have to
arrange to be awarded a high school equivalency and get
into college again. There'd be no Stanford for me this
time; I was certain of that. I still had the same parents,
and they had not been wealthy enough to provide my
education. I had done that with scholarships and part-time
jobs. There would be no scholarships for me this time
either.

"All right," I agreed at last. "But this will just be
temporary. I'm sure you don't want a wife on your hands any
more than..." Again I couldn't say it.

"Any more than you want a husband," Lance finished for me.

His tone was matter-of-fact, but his face seemed a little
sad. I remembered then that Pete recalled having a thing
for Vanessa Jerome. But surely he knew now that the memory
was a false one.

I had expected it would take just a few days to set me up,
but I was wrong. The problem was that while I had changed
and everyone around me remembered a reality in which Lucia,
Teri and Vanessa existed; the truth of the matter was that
there were really no written records substantiating my new
existence. In spite of the fact that Joyce had prepared for
us well, providing wardrobes and other feminine items in
each of our houses, she had not bothered with
identification, thinking according to the notes she left
that it wouldn't be needed just in Mendoza. Besides it was
another way to make certain none of us ever escaped our
fates. Without valid identification, we would be virtual
prisoners in Mendoza. A couple of thousand years ago when
the spell that had changed us had probably been developed,
there were no effective bureaucracies as in modern times.
Now, Social Security cards and driver's licenses and
hundreds of computer entries determine our identity. I had
none of those things. None of us did.

Lance turned out to be a lifesaver for all three of us
transformed women. We used Pete's funeral to get the ball
rolling. It seems Pete had made a number of successful
investments, and since he had no living relatives, his
estate created an endowment to the college, which Lance
magnanimously doubled in Pete's name. It was a considerable
sum, which got the attention of the school's president. One
thing led to another, and Lance mentioned to the president
that his wife was having trouble establishing her identity
- an obvious computer foul up since everyone knew I was his
wife.

Colleges and universities have considerable ability to
establish credentials. When none were found for me and my
two friends, the college moved mountains to establish them
for us, contacting all the right agencies and producing the
proper documents. Going directly to the various agencies
might have proven difficult in an era of heightened
security. Lucia would have been especially vulnerable to
government suspicion. However, with Pete's - excuse me,
Lance's - clever manipulation of the system, we eventually
had legal identities.

But as I have said, it took time. Days became weeks and
weeks turned into months. We three new women even learned
to experience the discomfort of periods and PMS. But we
used the time to establish lives for ourselves. Teri began
to get involved in a local theater group. With her new
slimmer figure (now that the eating compulsion was gone)
and her experience in Hollywood (which, of course, no one
knew about), she became a natural and had even started
rehearsals for a play, which would be presented in a few
more weeks.

Lucia had lost her thick accent, although no one seemed to
notice any changes. With her better command of English, she
was becoming active in politics. There was even talk around
town that she would make a good candidate for City Council.
It wasn't quite the glamorous political career Steve
Martinez had striven for, but Lucia Alvarez seemed happy
with it.

Both women seemed happy in their relationships as well, I
noticed. Even with the dictates of the spells that had
changed them ended, they seemed very attracted to their
spouses, and their spouses were now model husbands.

I have to admit, I envied them in a way. Lance and I had
stuck by our agreement. He even slept in the guest room,
and the only time he would touch me was in public where the
situation seemed to require it. I was grateful to him for
that. At the hands of his predecessor, I had been treated
so harshly that I had begun to believe I would never want
the touch of a man again. Joyce had left me with all of my
male memories and inclinations, and then had used Lance's
body to force me to act as a woman whether I wanted to or
not.

I hated putting Lance through all of that. I wanted him to
be able to go on and live his new life and let me live
mine. The problem was that since I would no longer be his
wife, establishing my identity was much more complicated.
And Lance was determined to do the best job possible of
making Vanessa real in the eyes of the law.

To complicate matters further, I had a family. My parents
and my brother would call occasionally, and they remembered
a daughter/sister named Vanessa. I suppose there was
something in the spell that made them not think it strange
that they had no pictures of me as a little girl. Lance was
determined to at least get them pictures of me as I was
now, arranging for professional photos to be taken of me.

"Don't you want to be in them, too?" I asked him. "After
all, my family thinks we're married."

He shook his head. "No, I don't think that would be a good
idea. When we dissolve the marriage, they won't want
pictures of me around." He said that so sadly, I really
felt for him.

Or was it more than that? I asked myself. Pete and I had
been such good friends. Now that Pete had become Lance, I
found myself becoming his friend all over again. He, of
course, didn't remember me as Dan, so the friendship was a
new one for him, albeit born out of a fascination with the
Vanessa he did remember. For me, it was different, though.
Even the difference of having Lance's body didn't deter my
memories of a friendship since I had been friends with the
original Lance as well.

Now, we were becoming friends once more. Together, we
discovered that Lance was wealthier than we had ever
imagined. Matching Pete's endowment to the college had
required little more than pocket change, and yet Pete's
contribution had represented his life savings. Pete and I
began to draw up wild schemes for the improvement of
Mendoza with contributions planned for parks and other
recreation as well as even more money for Mendoza College.

As the financial leader of the town, Lance had to attend a
number of events, usually with me on his arm. When the
events were over, we'd relax together at his house over hot
coffee laughing and discussing the confusion of the town's
elite as they realized Lance was more sensitive and that I
was more intelligent than they seemed to have remembered.
Our discussions finished, we would drag ourselves off to
our respective bedrooms.

As time went on, I found myself looking wistfully at Lance
as he made his way to the guestroom he now used exclusively
as his own. My short time as the previous Lance's sexual
partner - or perhaps I should say sexual slave - had
introduced me roughly to sex as a female. Although I
certainly wanted no repeat of that abuse, I did remember
some rare moments of pleasure with him, and seeing him go
off on his own to bed caused me to wonder what would happen
if I were to follow him back to his room. I was a little
embarrassed to find the thought actually made me a little
wet until...

Until one night, I went back to my room and masturbated.

There. I've said it. Lance and I had been pretending to be
happily married for over six weeks (although I'm sure Mrs.
Campbell knew better since she had to clean two bedrooms
instead of one). We had said our good nights and I found
myself watching wistfully as Lance retired to his room.
Without thinking, he had removed his shirt, exposing his
manly chest. I watched him in fascination, realizing I was
almost as affected by his bare chest, as I would have been
a few weeks earlier looking at a woman with my own chest.

And what about my chest? Yes, I was close to being Dan
Jerome's wet dream, and yet all I really saw when I looked
at myself was... well, myself. I went to my own room
thinking only of Lance's chest. No, that isn't quite true.
I started thinking about other parts of his anatomy as
well. Getting into my nightgown, I noticed to my dismay
that my thoughts had caused my nipples to harden, and there
was a strange feeling of emptiness in me as I put on the
matching panties.

I quickly turned out the lights and jumped in bed, hoping
sleep would cause these strange feelings to ebb. Then I
heard Lance still up and about. I found myself hoping he
would come into my room. But what would I do if he did?

For that matter, what would I do if he didn't?

I felt both disappointment and relief when I heard his
footsteps getting further away. He was just going into the
kitchen, I realized. My body informed me that this was not
acceptable.

But what was I going to do? Was I going to jump from my bed
and throw myself at him? That wouldn't be fair to him. He
was already working so hard to set me up with my own life
after the divorce. What would he think if I came on to him?

These thoughts faded as I began to touch myself. I began to
think more about what it would be like to have him with me
- in me - rather than what the ultimate consequences would
be. I heard another noise, and realized as I caressed
myself that it was a soft, animal moan in my own throat. It
didn't take me very long to build myself up to a climax. I
recognized it as Joyce had allowed me to experience them as
well, realizing that knowing what it was to achieve a
climax, as a woman would draw me even tighter into Lance's
sexual web. The strange thing is that this climax was
somehow not as satisfying - not as enduring. Something was
missing...

I felt myself blush as I began to drift off as the climax
began to slowly fade. I had just realized what the problem
was.

I needed a man.

The need got worse with each passing day. I suppose I could
have thrown myself at Lance, but I had begun to enjoy the
friendship we had reestablished. For me, it was a
continuation of my friendship with Pete, because in spite
of his change of body, I could still tell it was Pete
inside. But for Pete, our friendship was a whole new thing
- something he had never experienced before since he didn't
remember me as Dan at all. As a result, he was tentative at
first, uncertain as to how to approach me. And when I
thought about it, he had not been capable of an intimate
relationship with a woman since his accident. He seemed
unsure of himself. He was, in some ways, like a little boy
who had just discovered girls.

The problem for me was that as I rekindled - or in his case
kindled - our friendship, I began to feel something
stronger - something I had never felt as a man. I realized
all too late that I had fallen in love with him. I say it
was too late because the moment I discovered it was the
moment he gave me the greatest gift he could think of - my
freedom.

Lance had been withdrawn for several days. Oh, we still
went through the motions of being husband and wife in
public. But when we would return home, he would retreat to
his room with a minimum of conversation. Our friendly
sessions laughing about the townspeople we came into
contact with were no more. I began to wonder if I had done
something to anger him. Then, at last, he told me what he
had done.

I had been puttering around the house all afternoon. Mrs.
Campbell had already left and I had taken the opportunity
to fix Lance a special dinner. I didn't see it as a
newfound girl thing. As a bachelor, I had become pretty
handy around the kitchen. In fact, I still cooked "male" by
preparing a choice steak with baked potatoes and nothing
green except a salad. I had already opened a bottle of wine
and decanted it to welcome him home.

I don't think I did it to be seductive in any way. There
were no romantic candles on the table, and I wore a simple
white blouse and jeans rather than something soft and sexy.
I just wanted to pull Lance out of his funk and go back to
being friends with him again.

I rushed into the living room to greet him. Any hope I
might have had that he had come out of his blue mood ended
when I saw the forlorn look on his face. He was dressed
casually, but his mood when he saw me was distinctly
formal.

"Vanessa, would you come into my study for a minute?"

I hadn't been ready to throw myself into his arms, but I
was still taken aback by the stiffness of his request. "Of
course," I answered, following him into the room where my
new life had been forced upon me weeks before.

At least he sat next to me in one of his leather guest
chairs rather than across the desk from me. He produced a
folder I hadn't noticed before and opened it before my
eyes.

"The lawyers have drawn up a property settlement and are
ready to file our divorce."

"Our divorce?" I don't know why I sounded so surprised. We
had already talked about dissolving the marriage and had
both agreed to it. But somehow it sounded harsh,
unpleasant.

"I've waived the prenuptial agreement Joyce designed," he
went on as if I hadn't even spoken. "You'll get half of my
net worth - it's a mix of liquid assets and property, but I
assure you it's fair."

"I... I trust you," I said weakly.

I could feel blood coursing through my body almost as
unpleasantly as the night Joyce had changed me into a
woman. I wasn't even listening as Lance went on about the
details of the agreement. Then, I tried to focus, listening
to his words. No, it wasn't the words I hear - it was his
tone. He sounded sad. Could it be that he didn't want to do
this? If so, why hadn't he told me?

Then I remembered the old trite line about loving something
enough to set it free. Was that what he was doing to me?
Setting me free? Did he love me, or just the idea of me?

I felt my hand move, almost without my bidding - or perhaps
I should say my conscious bidding. Hesitantly, I put my
hand on his hand - the hand that held the agreement.

He looked up into my eyes, surprised at the gesture. "Is
something wrong?" he asked softly.

"We don't have to do this," I told him, trying to hold down
the quaver in my voice.

"But I thought it was what you wanted..." he returned,
sounding a little confused.

"I thought so, too," I admitted. "But now I'm not so sure."

"What would make you sure?"

I looked at him uncertainly, cocking my head just a little.
What would make me sure? I leaned toward him, closing in on
his face, feeling the warmth of his skin and sensing the
prickle of his whiskers. My lips touched his and I felt him
gasp in surprise before pressing his lips into mine.

When Joyce had been Lance, she had taken me roughly, as if
to punish me as was certainly her intent. When we had
kissed, it had been as conqueror to conquered. When this
new Lance kissed me, pleasure rather than pain coursed
through my body. I knew at once what I wanted. I knew what
had been missing from my life.

We didn't speak as we rose from our chairs, hand in hand.
Together, we went into the bedroom I had inhabited alone,
but which we both knew we would now inhabit together,
perhaps for the rest of our lives. Our hands began to pull
at each other's clothing. I thought for a moment about the
dinner I had prepared. Well, perhaps it would be satisfying
if eaten cold. Other things needed to be sated first.

Yes, as we tumbled into bed together to begin our new lives
together, I knew indeed what had been missing from my life
- from Vanessa's life and Dan's life both.

Love.

The End