Jacobi's laugh was harsh and abrupt.   "Oh, I don't think so.   You see, the magic doesn't work that way.   I can't use it to help myself directly."   His voice grew smooth, and the chill in it ran down my spine.   "But the three of you are impediments to my career, and I can... remove you."   The Dean's face grew pale, after all she believed in magic.   "No, " she whispered, pleading.   "Please, don't do this..."  

The wind was chillier today, blowing the first of the autumn leaves across the campus.   I pulled my jacket tighter as I crossed the quad, wondering why I was even bothering to make the trip.   Simon Jacobi would be gone in a short time anyway, there was no way the academic review board would renew his contract now, let alone grant him tenure.   I smiled grimly at the thought.   His loss, my gain.   Still, he'd finish out the semester, and appearances must be maintained.   Gracious winner, and all that.   So I was making the trek across campus, from my little cubbyhole of an office in the Engineering Building, to his little cubbyhole in Social Sciences.   Archeology wasn't a large department, and had to scrounge for office space wherever it could be found.   At least he's in the same building as the rest of the department.   Not that it helped him any.

I took the elevator to the top floor, and the stairs to the floor above that.   Officially, that would be the attic, but chronic budgetary constraints meant that the place had been swept out years ago, and 'temporary' cubicles put in, for grad students, and a few undergrads   privileged enough to be teaching assistants.   I grinned as I passed my old desk; the current occupant was noisily asleep, head down on the papers he was marking, drool gently pooling on some poor student's brain sweat.   Psychology grad, judging by the white mouse glaring at me from the cage.       It had little wires embedded in its skull and I wondered briefly how hard it must be to drill those tiny holes.

The official heating and cooling system knew nothing about any attic;   the air circulation was rudimentary, and I recalled too well, the whole space waffled between sweltering heat in the summer, and sweltering heat in the winter.   Today, the outside air was cool, but the attic received the benefit of the entire heating plant zealously pumping warmth into the rest of the building.   I smiled at the ancient grad student joke: It's all those professors below us, hot air rises.   My own office wasn't a lot better, but at least the A/C worked.     I unzipped my jacket, tempted to remove it, but I was hoping I wouldn't be staying long.  

As a contract lecturer, Jacobi outranked the grads -- barely-- and so was entitled to one of the few offices up here, a windowless closet just large enough for a bookcase,   one desk and a chair on each side.   Much the same as my own office.   A desk fan sat atop the bookcase, trying to move the listless air, barely rippling the heaps of papers   stacked on every horizontal surface.   My stacks were neater.   I thought smugly.   Maybe.     I rapped my knuckles on the doorframe and cleared my throat at the figure hunched over the laptop on the desk.   "You, ahh,   demanded to see me?"

Jacobi was old -- well, old for someone in our position.   I was twenty-six, and I judged he had a good decade on me.   At his age, the writing was on the wall -- you're not going any further, if you haven't managed a permanent position by now, it wasn't going to happen.   He was tall, and gangly, the desk appearing too small for his knees.   His hair was long and ill-kept, hanging slackly on either side of his head as he typed manically on the keys. When he looked up, his face was tanned and weathered, as befits an archeologist who spent most of his time in the field.   His eyes were odd, they would glance in my direction, then dart away, like they refused to settle on me.   His colorless lips smiled, but the smile didn't reach the rest of his face.     "Wirtz!"   He pronounced it 'Veertz', pretentious bastard.   " How nice of you to come see me.   I apologize for the tone of my voicemail, I get... carried away.   Sit, sit."   His tongue darted around his mouth, like it scented prey,   as he stood to take the papers from the guest chair and dump them unceremoniously on top of another stack.

I shook my head, leaning against the doorframe.   "Thanks but I'm not staying.   I came to see what was so damned important.   Your message.. well, you were pretty rude, actually."   Jacobi tried to look apologetic as he rose and shook my hand, a good bit taller than my own six feet.   "I'm truly sorry," he said.   "I needed to have you here -- ahh, here come the other guests.   We'll need two more chairs.   Would you mind?"

I was about to tell him to go to hell, when I turned and caught sight of the new arrivals: Our thesis supervisor, Professor Ng -- we all called him by his first name, Tom -- a small, bald Texan of Vietnamese heritage,   who somehow managed to look like an inscrutably Asian rodeo cowboy;   and... the Dean of the Archeology department.   Isabella Sanchez.   Dean Sanchez to all but a very few of her innermost circle.   Unless you were a grad student, and caught her eye.   A male grad student.   Then, for a few hours, you were granted the privilege of addressing her by her first name.   In return for providing certain sexual favors.     She was short and heavy, she was a screamer, and she was my mother's age with my grandmother's moustache; but when the Dean is the chair of your doctoral thesis committee, you do what you have to do.   I passed,   Jacobi didn't,   I recalled, glancing between the Dean and Jacobi.   Interesting.   I stole two stackable chairs from nearby cubicles, offering Tom a shrug and a puzzled shake of the head as our eyes met.

"Dean Sanchez!   Please, come in!   Tom, so good to see you.   Steven has the chairs, come in and close the door, I promise this won't take long."   Jacobi oozed hospitality. The Dean settled herself regally in the office's original guest chair, it creaked ominously.   "Your message was very.. explicit," the Dean hissed. "If you can't explain yourself, you'd better start packing."

Tom and I squeezed ourselves into our own chairs, the office was small enough I could reach out and pull the door closed from my seat.   I was feeling distinctly claustrophobic.   "Simon, if this is about your thesis, this is not the best way..." Tom started, but Jacobi waved him off.   "It is, and it isn't.   Frankly, I told you whatever would get you to come here.   I expect you want to know why."   He set a small wooden case on his desk, removing the lid to show three obsidian disks,   chipped from volcanic glass, and inscribed with some kind of glyphs.   I raised my eyebrow at that, if they were archeological finds,   then these were created by a primitive culture -- and it is extremely difficult to etch volcanic glass with the detail and precision of those glyphs.     He set them reverently on his desk, nearer to him than to us, but one artifact in front of each of the three of us.   Two of the disks were crazed with a network of very fine cracks, but the one in front of me seemed pristine and new.     "It's about these."   He muttered something under his breath, and touched each disk in turn, naming the person in the chair opposite as he did so.   "Isabella,   Tom, Steven -- It's about revenge."

I snorted, "This is a crock.   I've done nothing to you, we barely know each other."   I made to stand up, but found that my body wasn't listening to me.   The others had panicked expressions, having discovered the same thing.   The Dean licked her lips nervously. "R-revenge?   This is about your dissertation?   But it was nonsense!   A complete waste of our time!"   Tom made shushing motions, but the Dean wasn't about to be silenced.   "Magic?     Oh, please."   Her voice was becoming painfully shrill in the tiny room.   "We'd be laughed right off campus if we'd passed you.   Our academic credentials would be a joke!"     Jacobi smiled coldy.   "And yet... none of you can move, can you?   Why do you suppose that is?"    

It was Tom who stated the obvious.   "You found some."  

The disks had begun to glow, an odd reddish double pulsing, as if within each disk was embedded a pair of fiery rhythms.   The disk in front of me demanded my attention, insisted, with the flickering light from its depths.   I felt as if I should recognize the rhythm, as it drew me in, became the center of my world.   The glyphs were sharp, and clean, and yet oddly out of focus, my attention refused to remain on any of them long enough for me to even describe one.   The pulsing glow came from impossibly deep within the glass, and I realized the pounding in my veins was in time to one of the rhythms.   "H-heartbeat,"   I mumbled.

I could not raise my eyes to see, but I could hear the grin in Jacobi's voice.   "Yes, yes, very good!   Heartbeats, yours... and mine.   I was right! The disks have become attuned to us!"   I half-expected to hear him cackle, but he managed to retain at least that much control.   "Let me tell you what I know about these artifacts."   I could hear him settle back in his chair, getting comfortable.   There was a pause as he chose the best way to begin, he was, after all, an academic, a lecturer with delusions of professorship.   Finally, he cleared his throat, and began.

"You know that my research was concerned with religious practices and beliefs in the Polynesian culture, before the arrival of the... Christian missionaries."   He spat out the words like an epithet.   There was enormous variation, but I came to be aware of a small, but significant pattern of references to an even older culture, and I began to devote my efforts to locating the center of that culture.   Of course I was attempting to solve a puzzle with most of the pieces missing, and I had a number of promising leads, that proved false -- but I came to see a thread within the tapestry, a broken thread, I grant you, but one that seemed to reappear time after time."   His dry voice grew animated.   "That thread was magic.   There were consistent references in places that should have never had cultural contact.   Always the same, sacrifices to the volcano god -- the name had about fifteen syllables, I just called him K'panu -- and his priests who could work magic.   Never any tribes who actually had magic -- but they all believed in it."   He snorted.   "Yes, yes, I know, utter nonsense.   But the same story kept showing up.   Even the same place names, with minor variations, all over the Pacific!   Needless to say, I was intrigued.   I began the search for the origin of these tales.   It's taken me almost ten years."

The rhythm in the disk that wasn't my own heartbeat seemed to slow slightly, as he relaxed into lecture mode.   "I learned so much about that other culture as I searched, even rudiments of their written language, by matching commonalities with dialects that should have had no common ancestors.   A vast trading empire, well beyond just Polynesia, reaching from Asia to Peru -- no-one has ever suspected they existed!   An entirely new civilization, contemporary with the Mayans,   revolving around K'Panu and his priests.   Imagine the stir that would cause in academic circles.   But I could not publish!   Without the source, without artifacts, there was no proof, only conjecture.   I'd be a laughingstock."   He chuckled darkly, "Three years ago, I found it, and I thought I was washed up."

I could hear him shifting in his chair rummaging for something, and there was the sound of a match being struck.   "Mind if I smoke?   No, of course you don't."   His chair creaked as he leaned back.     "I found it all right.     All my research pointed to a particular location.   The only problem was, there was nothing there."   He sighed.   "Geological records show there was a major volcanic eruption sometime around the middle of the tenth century.   The volcano erupted for an entire year.     The ash and rock from the explosions made every island for a thousand miles around uninhabitable.   That was my island, of course. "   He snorted.   "Something pissed off the volcano god, and he destroyed the civilization built up around him.   Anyway, I figured, end of story, I was done, kaput.   What could I do?"   He took a long drag, and exhaled a cloud of blue smoke.   My eyes watered, still glued to the fires deep within the disk.   Cold sweat ran down the back of my neck, but I couldn't even shiver.   "Remember the tsunamis two years ago?   A series of undersea tectonic movements.   The ocean floor suddenly rose hundreds of feet.   Thousands died.   That was the luckiest day of my life.   My island came back."

Another pause, another cloud of smoke.     The pulsing fires deep inside my disk were endlessly fascinating, I would have been content to sit and gaze into its depths until I finally wasted away and died.   The rhythms were everything.   Nothing else mattered.     Eventually, Jacobi continued.   "Oh, it didn't come back all the way -- that would have been too obvious.   Another island did, though, to provide a distraction, it seemed to me.   I'd rushed to that one first, of course, hoping to find some clue, but if there ever had been anything to find, the original eruption, then almost a thousand years underwater, and a cataclysmic rise back to the surface had pretty much scrubbed it away.   Eventually I left it to the geologists, and chartered a boat, and visited the place where my island should have been.   A day's travel, maybe twenty-five, thirty miles.   Ocean as flat as glass.   The chart said it was just another empty stretch of blue, average depth, maybe two or three thousand feet."   The awe in his voice was unmistakable.   "It was maybe thirty feet down, practically at the surface, stretching as far as I could see.   The ruins of a lost civilization."

Another pause.   A fly buzzed somewhere in a corner of the room.   Outside the room, I could hear nothing, it was as if only this small, crowded space existed at this moment.   A long exhalation, another cloud of smoke, and the sound of a cigarette butt being stubbed out in an ashtray. "How could this be a coincidence?   I was convinced, at long last, my prize was being handed to me.   I had a dream that night.   A vision of a temple, a particular archway,   an entrance to a shadowed room."   He laughed, sharply.   "I do not normally get visions.   This dream was so vivid, so perfectly detailed... It took me two days to find it. By that time I was on the last of my scuba tanks,   I had maybe ten minutes to explore.   The disks were on an elaborate altar dedicated to K'Panu,   carved from a single block of volcanic glass -- do you have any idea how difficult that would be?   The effort that would take?   The runes on the disks caught my eye.   With my earlier studies, I thought I might eventually be able to decipher them."   A self-deprecating laugh.   "I admit, the idea of finding the Rosetta stone for this culture, the academic honor, the prestige, had a powerful appeal.   Anyway, they were the only artifacts I could find that I could possibly fit into my sample bag, so I grabbed them and returned to the boat."   He chuckled sourly.   "It was a close thing.   I ran out of air about ten feet before I got to the surface.   As soon as I got back to the boat, I stowed the disks and headed for the nearest place I could recharge the tanks, a tourist village about a day and a half away."   The palm of his hand slapped down on the arm of his chair, his voice choking with frustration.   "I'd just pulled up to the dock, when the ground started to shake and the tsunami warning sirens went off.   The ocean floor had dropped, again.   My island was gone."

Jacobi was shifting restlessly now, unable to remain still.   "In the scramble to reach high ground, I'd left everything on the boat.   Except the disks, of course, their value was beyond measure.   Naturally -- how could be just bad luck? -- the boat was destroyed.   My notes, camera, laptop -- any record of my discovery -- all wiped out.   K'Panu giveth, and K'Panu taketh away.   I was devastated.   It was madness for a while, trying to get out of there, in the wake of a such an enormous natural disaster -- is 'natural' even the right word?   I don't think so -- but eventually, I managed to get home."

More rustling noises, another cigarette being lit.   It could have been a minute, or an hour, it wouldn't have mattered to me, captured by my obsidian prison.     Finally, he went on.   "What could I do?   I devoted myself to writing up what I could, and presenting my research as my doctoral thesis.   With a PhD in hand, my hope was to gain a position here, to be recognized for my work, gain some research grants, to be allowed to continue my research."   The anger was rising in his voice.   "That hope was shattered, when you rejected. my. thesis."   His finger jabbed at the desk to punctuate his words,   the sound unnaturally loud.   There was a long interval while Jacobi struggled to control his temper.   I could hear the sound of the little fan pushing uselessly at the thick air from atop the bookcase, impossibly distant.   The cigarette smoke made my nose want to twitch, but not even that option was available.   When Jacobi finally continued, his voice was calmer.   "Tom, I'd hoped for better from you, but you were honest, at least.   You simply weren't able to understand the patterns I could see so clearly.   But Isabella, you reneged on our unspoken arrangement!   We had a deal, the same one you make all the grads -- for a few hours, I would pretend to find you attractive and sexually desirable, and you would support my thesis.   But you betrayed me -- you used me.   Only old von Sturm gave me his support, although admittedly I doubt he was awake for half of my presentation..."

His voice took on a grim humor.   "Fortunately my study of the inscriptions on the disks was more successful.   The disks were magical.   More powerful magic than I'd dared to dream, and yet not as useful as I'd hoped -- but why should I explain, when it's so unnecessary?   In a few moments, it won't matter to you anyway."   His weight shifted in the chair, and I out of the corner of my eye I became aware he had covered the disk closest to the Dean with his hand.     He spoke with a cold authority now.     "Tom, Steven, I want you to look at Isabella.   Isabella, look at me."   Instantly, my eyes snapped to the Dean.   Her eyes were riveted on Jacobi's face, as if it held the only item of any interest in the entire universe.   I expected my expression was much the same.   The back of Tom's head was in my peripheral vision, but I couldn't pay any attention to it.   Uh-oh.   This isn't gonna be good.   A droplet of sweat traced its way along her jawline, from her temple, down to her throat.

"Isabella, I want you to believe that I found actual magical artifacts on a tiny atoll in the South Pacific, and I want you to recognize me for the genius it took to track them down."   The Dean's face took on a look of awe as the ideas worked their way into her brain.   "Brilliant..." she breathed.   "Magic...is real!   This shatters what we thought we knew of the ancient world, of science!   You must publish!   You'll be famous!"   She was becoming more animated.   "The Trustees will have to grant us more funding!   A larger department!   A department of Magic...   You would be the star, of course!   They'd be mad not to see that."   A sly look came over her, and she looked at him through half-lidded eyes.   I recognize that look. Thirty years ago, it would have made her look sexy.   "You simply must come over for a glass of wine, soon.   We can discuss your tenure, Professor Jacobi..." she purred.

Jacobi's laugh was harsh and abrupt.   "Oh, I don't think so.   You see, the magic doesn't work that way.   I can't use it to help myself directly."   His voice grew smooth, and the chill in it ran down my spine.   "But the three of you are impediments to my career, and I can... remove you."   The Dean's face grew pale, after all she believed in magic.   "No, " she whispered, pleading.   "Please, don't do this..."  

"Isabella,"   Jacobi pronounced, his tone becoming more formal.   "You are an academic and a bureaucrat.   You pride yourself on your education and social status.   You take great pleasure in using your power over others for your sexual gratification.   You need something else to fill your time."  

He paused, considering, or perhaps savoring the moment.   The Dean was looking increasingly panicked.   "From this moment forth, your name shall be Bridget Mary O'Shaunessy.   You are nineteen years old, Irish by descent.   Your mother died when you were young, and your father raised you in a strict Catholic, blue-collar home.   You graduated from an all-girl Catholic high-school, barely.   You can read and write, just enough to get by.   You take care of your father, and to supplement his retirement pension, you work full-time as a barmaid at the Irish pub, just off-campus.   You are pretty, and flirty, but not beautiful, and you are engaged to be married at the end of the month to a... let's see... a mechanic.   He loves you and will be a good provider but will sometimes hit you when he's drunk.   You will keep your wedding vows to love, honor and obey him.   You will be a virgin until your wedding night."   He paused to take a breath.   "You will willingly grant your husband any sexual favor he may desire, but he will never give you an orgasm.   You will become pregnant on your wedding night, and after the baby is born, you will have an overwhelming need to become pregnant again as soon as it is healthy and safe for your body to do so.   Until you have had... oh, let's see... eight children.   You will love being pregnant, and being a mother, and having your tits sucked.   Let's see, what else..."   he chuckled unpleasantly and snapped his fingers.   "Oh!   of course.   You will remember nothing of ever being Isabella, and of what happened in this room, unless you are specifically told to remember, by one of the other people in this room.   If that should happen, Isabella's memories and personality will come back, and Bridget's will seem distant, like they were from the life of another person.   Isabella will fade and Bridget will return as soon as you leave that person's presence."   The Dean's face was a mask of terror.

I couldn't see what he did, but suddenly the air around the Dean seemed to shimmer.   Her dark hair fell from its tight bun, and seemed to lighten, turning a reddish-orange, and changing in texture to fall in waves to the small of her back.   Her body thinned and stretched, her features smoothing, growing younger. The Dean's pantsuit shifted into a flowing green above-the-knee skirt, with a bartender's apron tied around her waist, and a cream peasant blouse with a Celtic motif, covering breasts which had become fuller, but youthfully firm.   The bifocal glasses on the chain around her neck flickered, and became a small golden crucifix, nestling in her prominent cleavage.   Her dusky skin lightened in tone, becoming pale, and a smattering of freckles dusted her pert nose.   False eyelashes transmuted into real ones, fluttering over pale green eyes.   Her makeup became less subtle, more inexperienced, heavy on the mascara and eyeliner,   and her lips plumped and acquired laugh lines at the corners, with a shade of lipstick that went well with her new coloration.   The Dean's functional flats became a pair of moderately-heeled wedge sandals, and simple engagement ring appeared on her left hand.     The new Bridget was indeed pretty, but she was big-hipped and broad-shouldered, and slightly thick of proportion, and she would never be considered beautiful.   My guts clenched.   Jesus, he can really do it.   Suddenly, there was a loud CRACK and I would have jumped out of my skin, if I could have.     Jacobi sighed and muttered something like, "Well, that answers that question."   The former Dean sat there, immobile, her eyes still glued to Jacobi's face, although judging from the rise and fall of her impressive chest, she was nearly hyperventilating.   "Bridget, off you go to work, hon."   he commanded her gently, and she rose from her chair and squeezed past the two of us, the panic replaced by confusion on her face, as she tried to work out what she was doing in a tiny office with three strange men.   As commanded, my eyes followed her until she closed the door behind her, then the compulsion was released, and my attention was free to wander.  

My eyes fell on the disks, only two remained. Where the Dean's disk had been, only a small dusting of coarse black sand remained.   Jacobi noticed my attention.   "I don't know how long they last," he admitted.   "Two of the artifacts appeared to be older, perhaps they were being used as references to construct the third.   I suspected they had been used before."   He brushed the sand off his desk.   "At any rate, my hold on her is lost, there's no way to modify or reverse the magic, once the disk is destroyed."   "Why?   Why are you doing this?"   Tom demanded, his voice hoarse.   Jacobi's eyes moved to Tom.   "Why?   Tell me, who is Dean at this moment?"   Tom looked puzzled for a moment, then aghast.   "Oh, shit.   I...I am."  

I frowned.   That's not right.   Isabella has been Dean since... but somehow, my memories didn't match what I knew.   Tom had been Dean, ever since Isabella was dismissed after that complaint by those female grad students.   Jacobi smiled and nodded at the expression on my face.   "Ahhh, comprehension dawns.   The magic makes adjustments.   The world changes to fit the spell."   He shrugged apologetically to Tom.   "Of course, I couldn't be positive, but you were the most likely successor.   It seemed a good bet.   With YOU out of the way, my guess is it will fall to von Sturm." He grinned.   "He likes   me."   Von Sturm was the oldest professor in the department, probably the University.   All he wanted to do was nap and index his precious pottery shards.     "Plus, two tenured positions gone, increases the odds that I'll be offered one."   His eyes turn back to me.   "Especially if my main competitor is no longer in the running."   Fear took a better grip on my insides.   Well, that explains it, then.

Jacobi rolled his shoulders and straightened in his chair.   "So, to business then.   Tom, I don't mean you any harm.   I'll keep this pretty simple, and I'll try to make it turn out as well as I can for you."   He cleared his throat, placed his hand over Tom's disk, and fixed Tom in his gaze.   It seemed to me he was concentrating, picturing the changes he wanted to make.   "Tom, you are a freshman co-ed, still from Texas.   Your name is Tiffany... Tiffany Estelle Burke,   Tiffi to your friends.   You have a lot of friends, you are a very outgoing, cheerful person.   You were a high school cheerleader and prom queen.   You love cheerleading and are very good at it, and you will be attending the tryouts here at the university.   You have studied dance and gymnastics since you were a little girl, and now you teach on Saturdays and continue to take adult dance classes one evening a week.   You are a naturally graceful, athletic, sexy girl, never a slut, but a beautiful young woman confident in her own attractiveness and sexuality.   A bit of a tomboy, but always feminine, never 'one of the guys'. You don't have a boyfriend at the moment, but you're not a virgin, and eventually you will find a man you love and who loves you, settle down and become a happy housewife and soccer mom.   You are majoring in Physical Education.   Oh -- and Friday nights you work as a waitress at the Irish pub, where Bridget works."   He seemed pleased by his own cleverness.   He rubbed his chin, considering.   "You will not remember anything of Tom's life unless you are told to remember by one of the people in this room.   When that happens, Tom's memories will push Tiffi's into the background, and Tiffi's memories will seem like they are from someone else's life.   Tom will fade away as soon as you are out of the presence of the person who commanded you to remember.   And just in case -- you will be unable to touch either of these disks.   The sight of them will make you increasingly uncomfortable and want to leave the room.   Once they are out of your sight, you will not remember seeing them."   My eyes narrowed.   What is he up to?   There must be a reason for that...

His hand remained on Tom's disk, and Jacobi turned his attention on me, and smiled at my puzzled expression.   "There are quirks to the magic, of a sort, or perhaps the volcano god had a sense of fair play.   Once it is bound to the two of us -- as the heartbeats show -- I can do pretty much whatever I want to you, or -- "   he grinned, "-- I can undo it.   But... if I lose possession of the disk, it becomes unbound.     Neither of us can ever be bound again, and the changes become fixed.   The new owner can bind it to someone else, and start again. "But -- and this is the part that worries me, just a little -- if you ever gain possession, it remains bound to the two of us.   You can't undo the changes to yourself -- but you could change me."

I grabbed that thought fiercely and held on for dear life.   He cleared his throat and placed his free hand on my disk, the other remaining over Tom's.   A chill seemed to form around me, a swirling of icy possibilities, waiting to condense around his words.   "Steven Wirtz" -- he pronounced it properly, 'Wurts' instead of 'Veertz'. Asshole, I knew you did it just to piss me off!   He continued, "Steven Wirtz, you are an up-and-coming archeologist, with every indication of a successful academic career.   As such we are at odds.   I bear you no personal ill-will, but the circumstances are ...inconvenient.   If I am to be sure of success, you are a potential rival that must be removed." He grinned wickedly, "Besides, this disk was the newest.   I expect it will have a number of uses left, and I'm curious to see what it can do."   The terror rose within me.   I could tell I was hyperventilating at least as much as Bridget --   no! the Dean -- had been, but I wasn't allowed to pass out, I knew.

My eyes were locked on his, as he pronounced his spell.   "You are Stephanie Louise Burke,   Tiffi's identical twin sister.   Everybody calls you Steffi.   Like her, you were a cheerleader in high school, and have studied dance and gymnastics, and are every bit as accomplished as your sister.   You are also a Phys-Ed major, but have a different class schedule than your sister.   You teach with her on Saturdays, and take an evening dance class with her.   She is the dominant big sister, you are the submissive little sister.   She likes to look after her little sister, you like to have a big sister to help you.   What she does, you like to do too. You are uncomfortable being separated from each other for too long, although this is not in any way crippling.   You are also a cheerful person, but where she is outgoing, you are shy.     In public situations, you can be confident, but in private you are nervous and timid around strangers, and most of your friends are from your sister's circle of friends.   You are every bit as naturally sexy, graceful, and athletic, but where she is a tomboy, you are girly.   You are always aware of the latest fashions, and are expert in makeup and nails and hairstyles.   You are always wearing the appropriate makeup for the occasion, and are perfectly comfortable in high heels wherever possible.   While Tiffi was the prom queen, you were the local small town beauty pageant queen.   You also work on Fridays at the pub   -- " he grinned as he improvised, "-- in fact, the two of you have become Bridget's best friends, and Steffi will be her maid of honor, while Tiffi is a bridesmaid.   Like your sister, you are not a virgin..."   His voice drifts off, considering an idea, and from his expression, not a good one for me.

"...in fact, Steffi will discover she is a sexual submissive.   Giving sexual pleasure gives her sexual pleasure.   Being controlled, bound, dominated, obeying, in a sexual situation is intensely arousing.   Being sexually humiliated is intensely arousing.     You like it rough, but not mean.   Your body orgasms more easily and more intensely than most women's.     You will always remember being Steven Wirtz, but Steffi is always in control of your actions and emotions, except in the company of   the people in this room, and Bridget.   In short,"   he finished with an wicked smile, "you are a man trapped inside a wet dream."   I had no thoughts, just a keening wail inside my head.   Nonononononononooooo...   My fear was physical thing, clawing at my chest to get out.  

"You will be unable to touch either of these disks, and the sight of them will make you increasingly uncomfortable, and want to leave the room.   Once they are out of sight, you will forget you have seen them."     Then he removed his hands from the disks, and the cold magic that had been swirling around me suddenly took a double grip, and twisted.