Chapter One

“I’m still not sure how I did it,” I said to Erica as she continued stocking the shelves of her shop with the strange curiosities she sold, in this case some leather-bound books.

“And I’m not completely convinced you did it at all,” Erica said without even bothering to stop what she was doing to look at me.

The two of us were alone in Erica’s shop, which bore the highfalutin name Madam Zolga’s Occult Science Academy. Erica sold books on magic and other objects of interest to practitioners of magic. I didn’t understand why she had chosen such a dull name for her shop when there were catchier alternatives, but that was her business.

I crossed my arms over my chest, inadvertently squeezing together my ample breasts. I sighed. I had been a woman for months now and yet sometimes I unconsciously acted like I still possessed the body of a man. I uncrossed my arms and settled for placing my hands on my hips.

“Do you think I would make up something like that?” I asked.

I tried my best to look imposing. That wasn’t easy considering that I was a tiny twenty-two-year-old Latina who stood barely five feet tall and weighed little more than one hundred pounds. As a man, I had been six feet tall and weighed two hundred pounds. Adjusting to my petite feminine frame had been quite the challenge.

My attempt to look imposing wasn’t helped by the fact that I was dressed in a backless mid-thigh length floral print dress and ankle strap wedge sandals. I looked like I belonged at a summer picnic, not at a magic shop.

“No,” Erica replied. “There are other possibilities. You may have hallucinated the whole thing. You may have tapped into magical forces that you don’t understand. There are other ways to explain what you think you experienced.”

Erica was a raven-haired woman in her thirties with ivory skin. At five-foot-six, she towered over me. The first time I had walked into Erica’s shop, I had expected the titular Madam Zolga to be an old hag decked out in a head scarf with a wart on her nose, flashy golden hoop earrings hanging from her earlobes. Erica had upended those expectations. Dressed as she was in an emerald A-line dress with a black leather belt and a pair of white slingback heels, horn-rimmed glasses perched on her nose and her hair styled in a shoulder-length bob cut, Erica looked more like a fashion-conscious librarian than a stereotypical psychic.

“I think you’re jealous,” I said.

“Jealous of what?”

“Jealous that I figured out a secret that stumped people who have been toying with magic for years,” I said. “You’re jealous that I figured out that djinn artifacts can function as destiny orbs, as gateways between dimensions.”

Erica set the books in her hands down on the counter and glared at me. That had gotten her attention.

“Even if everything you’ve told me is one hundred percent true, djinn artifacts aren’t destiny orbs, and what you’ve described doesn’t sound like travel between realities,” Erica said.

“What do you mean?” I asked nervously.

“It sounds to me like you traveled to whatever world it is that the djinn call home,” Erica explained. “You said you didn’t have a physical form and you were able to perceive multiple realities simultaneously. That’s not how inter-dimensional travel is supposed to work. You may have had a window into other realities, but it doesn’t seem like you physically traveled to those realities. And destiny orbs don’t allow someone to ‘switch out’ realities the way you described doing. To me, it sounds like you may have found something in the djinn dimension that allowed you to change this reality. I can’t begin to tell you how dangerous that could be.”

“But Mort said…”

“I warned you not to trust the djinn,” Erica interrupted. “They have no respect for mortals and don’t care for anything other than their own selfish desires. Whatever you accomplished by traveling to the djinn world should be cause for concern, assuming you even traveled to the djinn world.”

Erica’s attitude troubled me. It wasn’t because she was being so testy. Erica was naturally argumentative and I was used to her being dismissive of my ideas. It was because she seemed genuinely worried about what I had done.

Erica wasn’t a magic practitioner like a witch or a sorcerer. She was simply a psychic with the ability to read auras. But Erica knew more about magic than almost anyone I knew, not that this was saying much.

Since being transformed into a woman a few months earlier by an irascible djinn who had called himself Mort, the only other people I had met with any significant knowledge of magic were a witch from Rich Port named Chastity and her niece Summer, who had been Chastity’s nephew until Chastity had transformed him into a girl in some misguided effort to teach him a lesson.
I had gone to Chastity in the hope that she would help transform me back into a man only to find that she was a dedicated misandrist. That was putting it mildly. Chastity was a stereotypical man-hating lesbian.

Chastity had zero interest in helping a woman transform into a man, so she had been of no help to me. On the other hand, I had become close friends with Summer, who had helped me adjust to my new life as a woman. As someone who had formerly been male herself, Summer understood what it was like to have her gender magically swapped.

Turning my attention back to Erica, I asked, “Assuming I didn’t imagine the whole thing, what’s the worst case scenario?”

“When it comes to djinn, there’s no floor for disastrous outcomes. As bad as things can get, they can always get worse. I wish you had talked to me before monkeying around with that djinn ring.”

I snorted.

“You wish? Please don’t use that word around me. I’ve had enough wishes to last me a lifetime.”

One wish was too many. Mort had only granted me one. That was how I had ended up with a vagina.

Unwise to the ways of djinn, I had wished to be a woman as a lark, not knowing that Mort could only grant me one wish, in refutation of the common myth that genies granted three wishes to their masters. Like so many things relating to magic, that had come as an unwelcome surprise.

“I’m sure you have,” Erica said. “I’ll look into it, but if I had to hazard a guess, I would speculate that you made a wish come true.”

“What?”

“You went to the djinn dimension and fiddled around with something there that allowed you to change reality here,” Erica said. “According to you, you did that twice. I can’t think of any other way to explain what you described. If you didn’t imagine the whole thing, then I guess you must have tapped into whatever force allows djinn to make wishes into reality.”

After weeks of studying magic under Erica’s guidance, I had eventually figured out a way to transform back into a man. The problem was that when Mort had granted my wish and transformed me from a man named David Rodriguez into a woman named Kelly Rodriguez, he hadn’t simply changed my sex. Mort had completely altered reality so I had been born a girl and spent my entire life as one. No one remembered David, they only remembered Kelly. So as David, I had no identity in the world Mort had created.

Out of desperation, I had figured out a way to travel to the djinn world using the gateway Mort used to travel between dimensions, an artifact that had taken the form of a ring. I had thought the ring was a gateway to an infinite number of realities, and I thought I had figured out a way to switch out the reality in which I had always been Kelly for one in which I had always been David.

But after all that, I found that life as David wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as life as Kelly. Kelly had friends who cared about her, including a boyfriend who was crazy about her, while David was a lonely loser who had still been a virgin at the age of twenty-two.
Missing my my life as a woman, and my boyfriend Johnny in particular, I had used the djinn ring one last time to switch out reality and return to the world where I had always been Kelly before saying goodbye to Mort and tossing the ring into the ocean.

Or so I thought. Erica was skeptical. She believed me when I told her that I had mixed an elixir that could turn me into a man. She thought that was within my abilities. After all, she had helped me learn magic by selling me various books on the subject. It was all that business about traveling to the djinn dimension and altering reality that she found difficult to accept.

Maybe she was right. Maybe I had imagined the whole thing. Maybe all of this hocus-pocus stuff had driven me insane. Maybe I was in a padded cell somewhere imagining all of this.

Whatever the truth of the matter, there was only one option left to me.

“I’m just going to go with the flow,” I said.

“What?” Erica asked.

“Ever since I found that stupid ring and met Mort, my life has been a weird topsy-turvy carnival ride,” I said. “I’m not sure what’s real. And I don’t care anymore. I’m just going to go with it. As far as I’m concerned, I’m an extremely lucky young woman with a great group of friends, an awesome boyfriend, and a bright future. I don’t care about genies or witches or alternate realities or magic unicorns. I’m just going to take life as it comes at me.”

“A sensible choice,” Erica said. “Especially given that there’s nothing else you can do.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That said, any information you can dig up would be appreciated. I’d still like to know exactly what I did.”

“Of course. But I can’t imagine I’ll be seeing as much of you now that you’ll be starting law school. I’m sure that will keep you too busy to study magic.”

I shrugged.

“Don’t be so sure about that. That genie introduced me to a whole world that I never even knew existed. If this is Wonderland and I’m Alice, I intend to find out how deep this rabbit hole goes.”

Erica grinned mischievously.

“Kelly, my dear, you should know by now that, in this Wonderland, rabbit holes are the least of your worries.”

Chapter Two

“I am not saying you’re moving too fast,” Ashley said as she lay on my bed watching me pack some of my clothes into a duffel bag. “All I’m saying is that it has been a while since you were in a relationship, and maybe it’s going to take time to get used to being in one again.”

Ashley was my best friend and one of the three roommates with whom I shared a townhouse. I had moved in with the three of them after answering an ad for a roommate back when I was still a man, although I hadn’t been on very good terms with them before my transformation into a woman. The girls had been so desperate for someone to help them pay the rent after their last roommate had left that they had accepted the first person to respond to the ad. I was pleased to find that I got along much better with them as a woman.

Like me, Ashley was a slim Latina with dark hair and tan skin, except she was several inches taller and her curves weren’t nearly as pronounced as mine. Her prominent butt was nothing to be ashamed of, but I had her outgunned with my 32DD chest. She worked as a beautician and had a tendency to wear heavy makeup, but Ashley’s skills with cosmetics were so good that I trusted her to do my makeup when we had a girls’ night out. At the moment, Ashley was dressed modestly in a pair of flared denim pants and a scarlet blouse with a boat neckline, but she always did herself up like a high end runway model for a night out.

“It’s not like you to beat around the bush, Ash,” I said as I placed a cute fuchsia negligee in the duffel bag. “Go ahead and say what you’re thinking. I’ve been a total slut for so long that I’m clueless when it comes to doing more with a guy than fucking and forgetting him.”

Ashley glanced off to the side and said, “You said it, Kelly, not me. But since you did say it, let’s talk about that. How long has it been since you broke up with your college boyfriend?”

“I caught Paul in bed with another girl at a frat party four years ago when I was a freshman, if that’s what you mean by ‘broke up.’ Personally, I think of it less as a break up and more like a life-shattering moment that crippled my soul. And you’re right, I gave up on relationships after that and only hooked up with guys for fun.”

And Kelly had a lot of fun after her relationship with Paul had ended. Those events had occurred years before my transformation into Kelly, but I had gained all of Kelly’s memories. Before dating Paul in college, Kelly had only been with two other boys. I had gone through Kelly’s memories several times to try and count up the number of sex partners she had slept with after Paul and could only come up with a rough estimate.

As David, I had been a virgin until the day of my transformation into Kelly. As Kelly, I was a very experienced girl. Although a virgin, I had watched a lot of porn as David, and I could safely say Kelly had done everything I had seen in porn at least once, and that she had also done a lot of things I had never seen in porn.

After my transformation into Kelly, I had made a concerted effort to abandon my former life of wanton promiscuity. It had not been easy, but after a rough start, I had gradually embraced a life of monogamous sexuality with my boyfriend Johnny. The world was filled with a lot of temptation for a nubile young woman like me, but I had been a good girl since getting together with Johnny, and it was much more rewarding than a life of meaningless sex with a constantly changing lineup of men.

“Being in a relationship isn’t like riding a bicycle, sweetie,” Ashley said. “If you’ve been out of practice for a while, you may need to take some time to get used to it again. It may be a good idea to ride around with training wheels before you pop a wheelie with Johnny, especially since you spent a long time riding a lot of other bicycles before getting together with him.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re mixing up your metaphor,” I said as I zipped up my duffel bag and dropped it on the floor of my room before sitting down on my bed next to Ashley. “Secondly, I’ve been riding Johnny for a while and I’ve already popped a few wheelies with him. I’ve ridden on his handlebars, we’ve done the track stand, the bunny hop, and, yes, even a front flip. I’m confident in my ability to handle this bicycle.”

Ashley shot me a sidelong glance and said, “Are those bicycle stunts or sex positions, girl? Never mind. I’m sure for you they’re both. Look, my point is that you don’t want to confuse the excitement that comes with getting into a new relationship with the feeling you get when you’ve fallen head over heels in love with someone. The longer you’ve been out of a relationship the easier it is to confuse the two once you finally get back into one.”

“I know what it feels like to be in love,” I said in a tone filled with more confidence than I felt.
I didn’t want to admit it, but Ashley had a point. Kelly had only fallen for three guys in her life before Johnny, and all three of them had broken her heart. As David, I had never been in love, had never even been in a relationship. Or had sex. Yet, despite my inexperience with love, I was more confident about the fact that I was in love with Johnny than I had ever been about anything else in either of my lives, as Kelly or David.

To deflect from my insecurity, I said, “What makes you such an expert on love, Ash? You’ve only been with one guy in your life and you gave up on men when he left you.”

I immediately regretted the words as soon as they were out of my mouth. Ashley had shared with me that she had ever only been with her high school sweetheart. They had planned to get married after graduating. In their senior year, the two of them had a fight over one of those stupid things only teenagers can get upset about, and although they got back together after a couple of weeks, Ashley’s boyfriend had hooked up with another girl in that time. Just before graduation, her boyfriend found out he had gotten the other girl pregnant. It was a difficult choice, but Ashley’s boyfriend had left her to help raise his child with the other girl. That had been almost six years ago and Ashley had been practically celibate since then. She had occasionally dated men or enjoyed a brief fling, but she had never been able to get over her distrust of men to get into another relationship.

Ashley put her hand on mine.

“I never claimed to be an expert on anything but hair, makeup, and doing nails,” Ashley said. “But I care about you, Kelly, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

My heart nearly melted. I gave Ashley a hug.

“Oh, here I am being an absolute bitch, and you’re still so sweet to me,” I said wrapping my arms around her. “I wish you were a boy, Ash, I would totally marry you.”

Ashley giggled.

“Bitch, please, if I were a boy, you would just be one more notch in my belt.”
I giggled, too.

“I love you, Ash,” I said. “Okay, I’m heading over to Johnny’s place now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I love you, too, sweetie. Go on, get out of here. Go be with your man.”

As I picked up my duffel bag and made my way down the stairs to the garage under the townhouse, I took a moment to appreciate how lucky I was. This was why I was glad I had become a woman. Men didn’t have relationships with one another as strong as the ones women shared. I had never had a friend like Ashley when I had been David, and I was grateful to be a woman if only to have a friend like her.

In the garage, I opened up the trunk of my Toyota Corolla and slipped my duffel bag inside. After closing the trunk, I looked over the back of my car. It was identical to the car I had driven when I had been David, except I now had a license plate frame and two bumper stickers on the rear of the vehicle that had not been there when I had been a man. The license plate frame said, “Out of the way, princess coming thru!” One bumper sticker read, “Back off, you can’t ride my ass unless you buy me a drink first!” The other bumper sticker read, “Whores spit, good girls swallow.” I had initially been mortified to find those additions to my car immediately after my transformation, but I now wholeheartedly agreed with their sentiments.

I got into my car and pulled out of the garage. I drove to Johnny’s place filled with the same sense of elation I felt whenever I knew I would be seeing him soon.

Although adjusting to life as a woman had been difficult at times, accepting a sudden attraction to men had come relatively easily. To begin with, I didn’t have a choice. After I became Kelly, I instantly discovered that sexual attraction is dictated by body chemistry. I found myself physically uninterested in women and aroused by the mere sight of young, attractive men. It was impossible to resist the automatic response. My new body also came with a healthy libido that filled me with an irrepressible compulsion to satisfy my physical needs.

My sex drive was so intense that on my second night as a woman, when the girls took me out to a nightclub, I went home with a man I had just met. Granted, I had a few glasses of liquid courage to help set aside my my inhibitions, but looking back I probably would have gone home with him even if I’d been stone cold sober.

I later regretted that one night stand, but not because I had any reservations about the fact that I was now a heterosexual woman with a woman’s natural desires, but only because he had been a selfish lover who had failed to satisfy my needs. On the bright side, that unsavory experience had convinced me to give up Kelly’s promiscuous lifestyle and pursue a serious relationship.

I smiled. That was how I had landed Johnny, the man of my dreams. I had met him soon after becoming a woman and, with Ashley’s prodding, had fought the impulse to immediately sleep with him. We dated for a few weeks before getting physical, and in that time we had the opportunity to learn about one another and discover that our mutual attraction was more than merely skin deep. When I finally did make love with Johnny, the experience blew my mind. I had never imagined sex could be that amazing.

I pulled my car into the underground parking garage of a large residential complex. Johnny owned a condo upstairs. After I parked my car and took out my duffel bag, I took the elevator to his floor.

I knocked on the door to Johnny’s place. When the door opened, a six-foot-tall Latin man stood before me dressed in a pair of boot cut jeans and a gray long sleeve fitted v-neck shirt. He had a thick head of black hair parted to one side, a few loose locks casually cascading down along the edge of his forehead. His tight-fitting shirt revealed broad shoulders, bulging biceps, and rock hard pecs. His skin boasted a rich honey bronze complexion. I gazed at his face and found a pair of almond-shaped eyes that were a deep amber hue set along broad cheekbones and a sharp chin. Those eyes exuded a simmering intensity yet somehow softened his rugged features. To sum it all up, Johnny was smoking hot.

I smiled at Johnny, dropped my duffel bag, and leapt onto him.

“I missed you, babe!” I squealed as I wrapped my arms around his neck and my legs around his torso.
I was so tiny and Johnny was so strong that he was able to pick me up effortlessly in his arms. He held my body against his as our lips met and I slipped my tongue into his mouth. I grew warm between my legs as I massaged Johnny’s tongue with my own and ran my hands over the hard muscles of his body. I wanted to feel him inside me so badly.

To my annoyance, Johnny pulled his face away from mine and said with a grin, “Honey, I need to get some oxygen before I suffocate.”

“You’d rather breathe than keep kissing me?” I asked. “You need to get your priorities in order, mister.”
Johnny put me down inside his living room and I craned my neck up to look at him as he grabbed my duffel bag out of the hallway and then closed the door. It was such a turn-on to see his massive frame towering over me.

“And to think I was almost expecting you not to show,” Johnny said as I slipped my arms around his waist.

“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from you,” I said.

“I’m sure you’d break any horse that tried,” he said.

“Damn straight,” I said. “But as much as I’d like to hop into the bedroom right now and show you how hard this cowgirl can ride a bucking stallion, I did promise to make you dinner.” I stroked the stiff bulge protruding from the crotch of Johnny’s pants and added, “Dessert is going to have to wait until later.”

Johnny rolled his eyes at me.

“What a tease,” he whined.

I raised one eyebrow and said, “Well, maybe I’ll grab an appetizer.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll nibble on some sausage.”

I dropped to my knees. I yanked Johnny’s pants and boxer shorts down around his ankles. A bolt of excitement shot out from between my legs and ran up my spine as my eyes fell on Johnny’s massive erection.

There were a lot of things I loved about Johnny. His intelligence, his warmth, his easy good looks. But nothing made my heart flutter like his big cock. The flesh of his manhood was smooth, a shade darker than the complexion that adorned the rest of his body. Even when his dick was soft (and I rarely ever saw it soft), it was long and plump. When his dick got hard (and it usually was when I was around), it was like the chiseled forearm of a weightlifter on steroids. Johnny’s cock was a work of art.

I looked up at Johnny with a smile as I leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on the swollen tip of his pecker. Then I wrapped my lips around his cock and ran my tongue around its head. Johnny released a deep-throated groan, like a wild animal growling in anger.

I had incredible skill when it came to giving head. I could use my mouth to keep a man on the edge of bursting for an hour or more if I felt like it. Sometimes, when I was feeling particularly sadistic, I would do just that to Johnny. I would push him to the edge but pullback before he could unleash his semen and slow things down before pushing him back to the edge. It was agony for him. Johnny would beg and plead with me to let him come, and the harder he begged, the longer I forced him to wait.
That was why I loved giving blow jobs. I enjoyed playing the submissive role when it came to sex, but sometimes I yearned to have a little more control. Blow jobs allowed me to experience the best of both worlds. I could get on my knees and submit to my man, but I could also dominate him by controlling the level of pleasure he received.

As much fun as it was to torment Johnny by delaying his gratification, I did have to get dinner started.
I worked the tip of Johnny’s cock aggressively with my tongue and my lips. A lot of girls will use their hands to speed up a guy when they’re in a hurry, but I’ve never been one to cut corners. Using anything but my mouth when giving head is cheating.

Johnny grunted and held his breath. He was trying his best to hold it in. His best wasn’t good enough. Once his cock was in my mouth, I was in control.

Less than five minutes after I had started on Johnny, he howled as if in pain and his cock writhed in my mouth. He unleashed a stream of his manly fluids, filling my mouth with a pleasant warmth. He spurted a few more times, each successive spurt weaker than the one that had come before. I savored the taste of his semen. It had a salty-sweet flavor. I had sucked enough cock so that I could appreciate how lucky I was to be with a man with such flavorful juices. I swallowed his seed greedily.

Johnny let out a lungful of air then plopped onto the nearby couch without even bothering to pull up his pants.

He muttered, “I can’t believe how good you are at that.”

I looked at him as I ran my tongue over my lips.

“Yummy,” I said. “Well, you fed me, so it’s only fair that I feed you. I’ll go ahead and get dinner ready, although I can’t promise you it will be as good as what you just served up.”

Johnny pulled up his pants and I left him as he began watching a baseball game in his living room. I went into the kitchen and pulled out two cuts of beef ribeye I had purchased the day before and left in his fridge. I prepared them medium rare and put together some butternut squash, string beans, and a pair of baked potatoes for sides.

I hadn’t known a damn thing about cooking as David, but as Kelly I had spent a lot of time helping my mother in the kitchen as a young girl and she had taught me everything she knew about cooking. I had initially just considered my new ability to cook to be handy, but I had since grown to relish the skill. Cooking was not only an enjoyable hobby, making a meal for others was a rewarding experience, especially when it came to cooking for my boyfriend. I liked to spoil my man.
I set the plates on the dinner table then grabbed a pair of wine glasses and a bottle of Merlot from the fridge.

As I filled the wine glasses, I called out to Johnny, “Babe, dinner is ready.”

Johnny walked up to the table and took a seat. We began eating dinner and he took a bite of the steak.
“That’s delicious,” Johnny said.

“Good. So were you. I’m glad I gave as good as I got.”

Johnny laughed.

“Are you excited about tomorrow, honey?” he asked me. “At long last, your first day of law school has arrived.”

I took a sip of wine.

“I’m hesitant. I spent a year working at a law firm after graduating from college and the experience hasn’t left me feeling enthusiastic about the legal profession.”

“Honey, you spent most of that time working as a secretary. Answering phone calls and grabbing coffee for their boss wouldn’t leave anyone feeling enthusiastic. If your time there was really so bad, why did you apply to law school?”

I shrugged.

“I couldn’t think of anything better to do,” I said. “You should know by now that I lack imagination.”

“Hardly. If anything, you have too much imagination. With all the crazy ideas that come out of your head, you could have been a writer. And with your looks, modeling or acting are options. I know you wouldn’t be going to law school if this wasn’t what you really wanted.”

“It’s the best idea I could come up with,” I said. “If I come up with something better, I’ll go with that instead.”

When we were done eating, we cleaned up the table and took the Merlot with us to the living room. I had convinced Johnny to watch a romantic-comedy with me called Fashioning Mr. Right. The movie was about a young woman who worked as a successful fashion designer but whose love life was hopeless. When she found herself invited to a college rival’s wedding, she was driven to ask a random stranger to pose as her boyfriend. Naturally, the two of them couldn’t stand one another but gradually fall in love after a series of hilarious hijinks.

I had hated romantic-comedies as a man, but my view of them had changed dramatically since I had become a woman. They were now far more interesting to me than the formulaic action films I had enjoyed as David. I enjoyed eyeing the stylish outfits the main characters wore, and their struggles with men and romance were relatable. Plus, the leading men were always pleasant to look at.
“Does every woman fantasize about being a fashion designer or something?” Johnny asked during the movie.

“What do you mean?”

“In almost every movie you ask me to watch with you, the main character usually ends up running a clothing store, designing clothes, working as a model, becoming a personal shopper, or doing something else in the fashion industry. What’s the deal with that?”
“Dressing up is more fun for girls than for boys,” I said by way of explanation. “As a guy, getting dressed in the morning means picking out what shirt and pair of pants to wear for the day. And whatever you pick, you can probably wear it to any occasion short of a wedding. As a girl, I have a lot more options. Pants and t-shirt? Blouse and skirt? Jumper? Tights? Dress? If I go with a dress, is it going to be a sheath, strapless, halter, A-line, peplum, gingham, wrap, or something else? Even if I just go with a pair of pants I’ve got dozens of styles to pick from. And of course, certain outfits suit only certain occasions. It takes a lot of fashion savvy and a keen eye to put together an ensemble that works for a range of different settings. It’s a ton of work to get dressed when you’re a girl, but it can be a lot of fun, too. I like getting together with my girlfriends to pick out clothes and mix and match different styles. It’s kind of like playing fantasy baseball or talking about which football players should be traded to which teams. It’s something fun to do with friends. The better you know your stuff, the more people respect your opinion.”

“Guys dream of getting paid to play baseball or football, and girls dream of getting paid to play dress up, is that it?” Johnny said.

“Everybody clings to a dream,” I said.

As the movie credits rolled, I turned to Johnny and said, “Thanks for watching that with me, babe. I know it’s not your cup of tea.”

“It’s fine. I knew watching chick flicks was part of the package that came with having a girlfriend.”
“Good,” I said. “Now I think we can enjoy another part of the girlfriend package that you may find more fun.”

I grabbed Johnny’s hand, stood up, and led him to to the bedroom.

I unzipped my floral print dress and let it fall to the ground. Johnny was quick to yank off my bra and panties. I kicked off my wedge sandals. Once I was completely naked, Johnny picked me up and tossed me onto the bed. He pushed my thighs apart and buried his face between my legs.

I had hit the jackpot with Johnny. It was rare to find a man who enjoyed eating out pussy. It was rarer still to find a man who was any good at it. Johnny was a virtuoso when it came to going down on me.

His lips gently pressed against the flesh of my inner-thighs, planting tender kisses. I gasped as his lips found my womanhood. The warmth of his tongue running over my delicate labia made me moan.
Johnny’s tongue eventually found my clitoris and I writhed as he vigorously manipulated my sensitive little nub. The rapid flicks of his tongue grew more intense as the sensitivity of my clitoris increased. Then, just when I thought I couldn’t bear the physical intensity of Johnny’s oral assault on me any longer, his tongue slipped in between my labia and went to work.

“Oh fuck yes!” I said.

A few minutes later, I shut my eyes as muscles deep in my groin tightened involuntarily. I let out a loud extended roar of delight as my body convulsed. Waves of pleasure shot out from between my legs and coursed over my body. My first orgasm of the evening was so raw and intense that it hurt.

“I love eating out your tiny pussy,” Johnny said.

Thick beads of sweat dripped down my face. I struggled to catch my breath.

“Chow down, babe,” I said absent-mindedly. I was lost in the glow of my orgasm.

Johnny didn’t care. He quickly stripped naked and tossed his clothes in a pile on the ground. Going down on my pussy had gotten his big dick rock hard again. It jabbed out in my direction, as if pointing me out as its next target.

For a moment, I thought he was going to plunge his dick into my womanhood right then and there. Instead, his dick slapped against my tummy as Johnny reached for my boobs with his hands and began massaging them. He wrapped his lips around one of my nipples and began teasing it.

“You want to suck on my big tits, babe?” I asked.

“Yes,” he muttered with a mouthful of one of my boobs.
Like every man I had ever been with, Johnny loved playing with my breasts. I couldn’t blame him. Without a shred of false modesty, I knew my breasts were immaculate. They were big, round, firm, and seemed immune to the pull of gravity. On my tiny frame, my large breasts looked unusually striking. Men loved caressing my boobs, kissing them, licking them, and sucking on them. And I enjoyed it even more than they did.

“You make me so fucking hard,” Johnny said as he fondled my breasts.

“Babe, please put it inside me,” I begged. “I need you inside me. I need it now. Please.”
Johnny nodded.

“You always want it,” Johnny said. “You must be the horniest girl in the world.”

“Damn right. Now give it to me. Make me your woman.”

Johnny took my little ankles in his big hands and raised them into the air. He spread my legs apart and exposed my soaking wet womanhood to his throbbing erection. I felt so vulnerable lying on my back with my tiny slit at his mercy, and I loved that feeling. Johnny positioned himself over me and I felt the familiar sensation of his cock pressing against the lips of my vagina.

I bit down on my bottom lip. This part was always the hardest. I moaned as I felt a sharp pinching sensation between my legs. It was always painful at first. As Johnny pushed himself inside me, my flesh stretched to accommodate his size. It was agonizing. But I welcomed the pain. Even when it felt like I was going to burst, I didn’t want him to stop.

“Oh, fuck yes!” I cried. “It hurts so good, babe! Keep going!”

“I’m trying,” Johnny grunted. “You’re tight as hell down there. I can barely fit.”

“Stick it in!” I demanded.

I groaned as my muscles relented in the face of Johnny’s persistence. As he pulled me open, the sharp pain gave way to intense pleasure. Johnny was pushing against ultra sensitive areas within my body that sent bolts of electricity flowing in every direction.

Johnny suddenly pulled his hips back and drew away. I gasped, afraid he was about to pull out of me. But Johnny stopped just short of withdrawing from the warm embrace of my slit. Then he thrust his hips forward, once again subjecting me to a sharp pain as I stretched apart for him. Johnny thrust in and out of me like a man possessed.

As I screamed in ecstasy, I once again felt grateful to be a woman. As David, I could never have fulfilled the role of a man the way that Johnny did. It was impossible to imagine David satisfying a woman the way Johnny satisfied me. I was so much better off as a woman. Surrendering myself to Johnny, allowing him to take control of me, to use my body to gratify himself, that came naturally. Not only did it feel right, it felt so fucking good. I was never meant to be a man. I was all woman, and always had been where it counted.

I lost count of my orgasms. They came in rapid succession, each more powerful than the last. I twisted and writhed as each one caused my body to convulse in pleasurable delirium.
“Oh yes, babe!” I screamed. “Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me!”

I didn’t want the pleasure to ever stop. Unfortunately, I eventually felt Johnny’s cock spasm violently within me. My insides filled with a soothing warmth as his semen gushed out of his dick. Although disappointed that this would lead to a break in our lovemaking while Jonny recharged, I was elated to have Johnny fill me with his seed. It made me feel like I belonged to him. I loved that feeling.
I felt Johnny grow soft within me. He pulled out as his manhood diminished in size, although it didn’t become all that much smaller. Then Johnny tossed himself down beside me on the bed, wrapped one of his arms around me, and pulled me against his chest.

“Babe,” I said struggling to catch my breath as I nestled my face against his pecs, “that was amazing.”
“No kidding,” he said. “You are insanely good at this.”

“Practice makes perfect, babe.”

Johnny eyed me suspiciously and asked, “And exactly how much practice did you have before you met me?”

“Babe,” I said, “before you I was an innocent virgin.”

Johnny laughed.

“Glad you gave me the honor of being the one to pluck your flower.”

“No, babe, thank you. You’re free to pluck every flower in my garden.”

A minute or two later, Johnny was fast asleep. I propped myself up on one arm and gazed at him. I ran my fingers through his thick black hair, caressed his chest, and ran a hand down his hard abdominal muscles. Even flaccid, his thick cock looked virile and ready to pounce. I took his manhood in my hand and gently stroked it, careful not to wake him up.

I was so fortunate to have landed Johnny. I allowed myself to indulge in daydreams of our future wedding, of getting pregnant with our first child, of coming home to him for the rest of my life, and of growing old together. I was the luckiest woman in the world.

After a long time, I lay my head on Johnny’s chest, closed my eyes, and dreamt sweet dreams.
Chapter Three

“And the judge looked at the young lawyer and told him that, in the next world you get justice, but in this world you get the law,” Dean Jacqueline Putnam said.

I couldn’t tell if she was joking given the sour expression on her face, but the crowd of law students seated with me in the auditorium at the Pacifica University School of Law erupted in laughter.

Dean Putnam was a diminutive woman with craggy skin the color of flour and curly pale brown hair. She had a perennial scowl on her narrow face, which didn’t improve when she contorted her thin lips into a rigid grimace that was supposed to pass for a smile. Dressed as she was in a red blazer with padded shoulders and an ankle length black skirt, she looked as if she was actively trying to convince people that she was outdated.

As the crowd’s laughter died down, Dean Putnam said, “Hopefully, your first trial will go better. Now I’ve gone on and rambled too long. We will go ahead and break for a reception on the lawn out front before continuing with our orientation today.”

The crowd applauded as Dean Putnam left the stage. Slowly, the assembled law students began making their way out of the auditorium.

“She was so funny,” the girl seated to my right said as I got up out of my seat.

I had met Claudia a few minutes after arriving on campus that morning for the orientation. Along with the rest of the first-year students, I had paced around awkwardly in the lobby outside the auditorium, trying not to look out of place while I waited for the orientation to start. After waking up at Johnny’s place, I had gotten dressed in a light gray jacket and matching pencil skirt with a navy blue blouse, and I felt overdressed around the other law students who had emphasized the casual in the business casual dress code we had been given for the event.

That’s when I had noticed Claudia standing off to one side, wearing a black polyester pantsuit with a lavender button down shirt. She was roughly my height, a curvy girl with flowing black hair and olive skin. I fought against the antisocial impulses that had dominated my personality when I had been a man and forced myself to walk up to Claudia and introduce myself. I was pleased to find that she was friendly and eager to get to know her new classmates.

“Yeah, she’s a funny one,” I replied as we walked out of the auditorium. Then I tried to change the topic of conversation by saying, “By the way, are you staying in the school dorms or do you have a place off campus?”

“Oh, my dad would never let me move into one of the dorms,” Claudia said. “He knows how out of control things can get on a university campus.”

“Yeah, but you’re a grown woman. It’s your decision, right?”

“My family is very old school,” Claudia said. “My parents aren’t okay with their good Christian daughter being surrounded by booze, boys, and other temptations. What about you?”

“I’m kind of already living in sin with my boyfriend, so I don’t need to worry about being tempted,” I said. “I stay over at his place a lot and I’m hoping to move in soon, but for now I’m sharing a townhouse with three other girls.”

“That must be so fun. Having girls your own age for roommates, I mean, not the living in sin part. Having my parents for roommates has its perks, like not having to pay rent, but they can get a little overbearing. Being twenty-two and still having a curfew feels weird.”

“Where did you say you were from again?” I asked.

“I was born in Egypt but I grew up in Fairfield. Talk about culture shock. Not too many other Egyptian kids around there when I was growing up. Everyone thought I was Mexican and random people kept coming up to me and speaking Spanish. Are you Mexican?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said. “My parents were born in Mexico and came here a few years before I was born.”

“Cool. We’re both the daughters of immigrants. I wonder what else we have in common.”
“I shudder to think,” I said.

Claudia and I walked out onto the lawn, which was a bit of a challenge for me in a pair of black leather pumps with four-inch heels. The lawn was bordered by several tables offering coffee, tea, lemonade, sandwiches, and pastries. I made my way to the table with the coffee and reached for a cup. Before I could grab the cup, a puffy peach-colored hand with neon pink fingernails picked it up.

That hand belonged to a dumpy girl with light brown hair done up in a haphazard bun, prominent rosy cheeks, and vacant blue eyes. The girl was dressed in a loose-fitting mauve corduroy jacket, a green rib-knit turtleneck, and jeans. She was only a couple of inches taller than me but I could see that she was wearing a pair of unfashionable flats, so without my heels she probably stood half-a-foot over me. One glance at this basic bitch was enough to tell me that she was a train wreck.

“Hey, I was reaching for that,” I cried indignantly.

The train wreck looked at me with a little smile and said, “Sorry. Here, take it.”

The train wreck thrust the coffee toward me abruptly, causing some of the coffee to leap out of the cup and splash onto my blouse.

“Fuck!”I cried. The coffee had splashed onto my chest and it was scalding.

“Whoopsie!” the train wreck said as she put down the coffee and began dabbing my breasts with some napkins she picked off the table. “Let me get that for you. Man, I hope that doesn’t leave a stain.”
I grabbed the napkins and pushed her hands away.

“Thanks, but I don’t let anyone squeeze my boobs unless they’ve bought me a drink first,” I said. “I think you burned off a nipple.”

The train wreck laughed.

“Well, you’ve got plenty of boobage there, I’m sure you can spare it.”

As I dabbed the stain with the napkins, Claudia, who had watched the entire scene unfold in stunned silence, said, “Oh my gosh! Are you okay, Kelly?”

I nodded.

“I’ll live…despite this bitch’s best efforts.”

“Wow,” the train wreck said. “Day one and my classmates are already calling me a bitch. This is college all over again. Hey, look, I’m sorry. I’m totally going to make this up to you. My name is Nadine.”
Nadine extended her puffy hand toward me. I glared at her.

Then Claudia reached out and took Nadine’s hand.

“Hi, Nadine. My name’s Claudia. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, a real pleasure,” I muttered.

Nadine got me a fresh cup of coffee, which I reluctantly accepted. I took a seat on a bench at one end of the lawn, and Claudia sat beside me. Nadine hovered over us.

“So what brings you two to law school?” Nadine asked.

“It’s my latest get rich quick scheme,” I said. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m going to try stripping.”
Nadine laughed.

“If I were you, I would have started with stripping. You’ve definitely got the body for it.”
“Gross,” Claudia said. “I think I’d vomit if a bunch of perverts sat around watching me dance in my underwear.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea,” I said flippantly. “If you strip properly, you’re not wearing any underwear when they watch you dance.”

“What brought you here, Claudia?” Nadine asked.

“My mom and dad expect me to either be a lawyer, or a dentist. I get queasy looking at other people’s mouths. This was really my only option.”

“Cool,” Nadine said. “I’m broadening my horizons. I’ve been working in tech support since I graduated from college a couple of years ago. I thought I had it pretty sweet, chilling at the office with my pals all day, smoking weed at night, partying on the weekends. It was sick. But after I married my husband last year, I felt like I had to think bigger. The coolest chick I ever met was this lesbian attorney who took on cases for LGBTQ people and, like, fought for their rights to love who they love. I thought about it and that sounded like a cool way to devote my time and energy. Like, it’s a noble life path.”
Claudia and I exchanged puzzled glances.

“You applied to law school because marrying your husband made you want to fight for gay rights?” I asked.

Nadine stared at me blankly.

“Sort of. I mean, my husband does investment banking. I don’t completely know what that involves, but he’s a professional. And I thought I should step up and get on the same level instead of just working a job where I slacked off all day with my friends. So here I am, moving up in the world.”

I pulled my phone out of my purse to look at the time.

“Hey, it’s almost time for everyone to head over to their first class for orientation. I better get going.”

As I stood up, Claudia said, “Yeah, I need to be over in Professor Dinwiddie’s torts class. Do either of you know where Spengler Hall is?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I checked the map. That’s my first class, too. We can walk over together.”

I was about to bid a fond farewell to Nadine, when I saw her expression brighten as she said, “No way!
That’s my first class, too! What a coincidence! Come on, let’s go!”

I rolled my eyes as the three of us made our way across campus.

Spengler Hall was an unassuming red brick building designed in an unimaginative neoclassical style. It wouldn’t have been out of place on any university campus. We made our way to our classroom where dozens of other students were quickly filing up seats. I took a seat in the front row with Nadine sitting to my left between me and Claudia.

Claudia and Nadine were chatting idly with one another while I stared absently at the podium at the front of the room waiting for our professor to show up.

“Is this seat taken?” a voice asked.

I turned to my right and saw a guy standing there in creased black slacks and a blue shirt. He was tall, with a slim, athletic build. He had a thick head of blond hair and a pair of green eyes that glistened under the glare of the sun streaming through the classroom’s windows.

“No,” I said, staring at the stranger a little longer than I should have. “Not at all.”

“Great,” he said as he sat beside me. “I’m Dylan. Nice to meet you.”
I shook his hand and said, “Likewise. My name is Kelly.”

“Are you a local or did you move here for school?”

“Oh, I grew up in Chaparral Terrace,” I said. “Where are you from?”

“I’m from Tucson,” Dylan said. “Not a long way as the crow flies, but a whole other world.”

Dylan and I chatted in a friendly way for several minutes.

I won’t lie, I was flustered by my conversation with Dylan. As I gazed at him, I grew warm between my legs. There was nothing I could do about it. Like I said, my attraction to men was a biological compulsion. That wasn’t the first time a handsome man had elicited that reaction from me, and it wouldn’t be the last time.

My physical attraction to Dylan wasn’t what bothered me, though. What bothered me was the way I instinctively flirted with him. That was not something I had done with any guy since getting into a relationship with Johnny. Yet despite myself, something about Dylan’s casual approach led me to indulge his overtures. As if, unlike every other man who talked to me, he was just being friendly. I let my guard down around him.

A thin, middle-aged man with close-cropped sandy hair dressed in a blue-striped button-down shirt, khaki pants, and brown wing-tip shoes approached the podium at the front of the classroom. He placed an open notebook on the podium and adjusted his glasses as he peered around the room. The assembled students quieted down and focused their attention on him.

The wiry little man pointed a sharp, claw-like finger directly at me.

“You there, miss, the one in the gray jacket and blue shirt, what’s your name?”

“Uh, Kelly Rodriguez?” I replied. I was caught off guard and it came out sounding like a question.

“You don’t sound too sure about that,” the man said. “Well, are you or aren’t you Kelly Rodriguez?”

Some of my classmates laughed at my discomfiture, including Dylan and Nadine. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Claudia looking at me with an expression of both concern and fear, as if I were being attacked by a stray dog while she looked on helplessly.

“I was the last time I checked,” I said.

“Good enough,” the man declared. “What is a tort, Miss Rodriguez?”

“Uh, that’s like an act that hurts someone.”

“I see. Now, if I were to call you a nitwit, would that constitute a tort?”

“I don’t think so.”

“No?” the man said. “Does it not hurt you to be insulted?”

I shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess it hurts my feelings.”

“And did you not say that a tort is an act that hurts another? By that definition, does a verbal insult not qualify as a tort?”

“Well, I don’t think I could sue you for calling me names,” I said.

“Ah!” he exclaimed. “Now you claim that you must be able to sue me for an insult to qualify as a tort. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“If that’s the case, would you care to revise your previous definition of a tort?”
I thought about it for a moment.

“I would say a tort is a harmful act that someone can sue you over.”

My interrogator cocked his head to one side, blinked with deliberation, and then nodded slowly.

“Good enough, Miss Rodriguez,” he said. “There are many ways to define a tort. In this class, it is defined as an act or omission that causes a harm, the occurrence of which creates a right to seek a legal remedy before a court of law. I am Professor Dinwiddie and this is torts. What you learn in this class, you will never forget, not as long as you live. I intend to make sure of that.”

I swallowed hard. That was my introduction to law school.

Chapter Four

Orientation ended around noon. Afterwards, I went with Claudia and Nadine to the campus bookstore to buy our assigned textbooks, which were referred to as casebooks in law school because, I suppose, they were filled with excerpts from legal cases. As it turned out, the three of us all had the same class schedule for the semester. I’d be with the two of them in all my classes.

Then Nadine insisted on buying me coffee to make up for the one she had spilled on me earlier. I reluctantly accepted her offer, coming to terms with the reality that fate had thrust this dumpster fire of a human being on me for reasons I would probably never understand. By the time I said goodbye to Claudia and Nadine in the campus parking lot, it was only 2:00 p.m.

I had expected to spend most of the day at the orientation, and I was surprised to find myself free so early. I decided to go to Johnny’s place and wait for him to get home from work. I didn’t have a key to get into his place, but I had my tricks.

I parked my car in the underground garage of Johnny’s complex and took the elevator up to his floor. When I stood in front of the door to Johnny’s condo, I looked around to make sure I was alone. Then I reached into my purse and pulled out a small glass bottle filled with a pale yellow powder. I removed the cap on the bottle and squeezed a pinch of the powder between my thumb and forefinger. As I sprinkled the powder over my head, I muttered an incantation in a language that was not normally spoken by humans. I closed the bottle and placed it back in my purse.

Within moments, I felt something akin to a light breeze flow over my body. The sensation only lasted a moment, but after it was over I felt much lighter.

I took a deep breath and extended my right hand toward the door to Johnny’s condo. My hand pressed against the door and then gently pushed through it. The door was undamaged. My hand passed through the door like it wasn’t even there. I pushed the rest of my arm through the door then took a step forward, walking through the door as easily as if it were nothing more than a curtain of mist. An instant later, I was standing in Johnny’s living room.

I smiled. A touch of magic came in handy now and then.

I whispered another incantation in the language I had spoken earlier. That peculiar breeze washed over me again. Then I pushed my hand against Johnny’s door, only this time my hand didn’t go through. I was solid again.

I had been experimenting with the spell for a few days and was having fun with it. Buzzkill that she was, Erica had cautioned me that if the spell was performed improperly, it could lead the user to fade away into nothingness. She made it clear that this wouldn’t lead to death, it would lead to a permanent state of consciousness without form. It was one of several fates worse than death that Erica had brought to my attention since I had begun practicing magic under her tutelage.

Suddenly my attention was drawn to the sound of grunting. It was coming from Johnny’s bedroom. Then I heard a shriek, like someone crying out in anguish.

I dashed down the hall and grew nervous when I noticed some articles of clothing on the ground. Johnny was a neat freak, he wouldn’t leave his clothes lying on the ground like that. Something was wrong.

The door to the bedroom was unlocked and I burst inside. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw when I entered the room.

A stunning woman with long, flowing platinum-blonde hair and pale skin was straddling Johnny beneath her on the bed.

For a moment, all I could focus on was this woman, I couldn’t even register what she was doing with Johnny. Strange as it sounds, when I first laid eyes on her, I was distracted by her beauty. Her muscles were perfectly toned and she had an hourglass figure that must have drawn the envy of every woman who saw her. And her face was so fair that it would have put most beauty pageant contestants to shame. This woman was inhumanly gorgeous. Her size made a distinct impression, too. Although thin, she possessed an impressive height, with a pair of massive breasts capped with bright pink nipples. She looked almost as tall as Johnny.

My focus on this woman’s looks only lasted for a moment. Then I realized she was fucking my man.

“What the fuck are you doing?!?!?!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Johnny looked over at me with an expression of horror on his face. The woman he was fucking turned slightly to look at me, but her hips did not stop thrusting back and forth. She looked at me with an expression of curiosity, but practically ignored me otherwise. She continued bucking up and down on top of Johnny.

“Get off of him!” I demanded as I charged toward the bed.

The mystery woman leapt off Johnny with the alacrity of a trained acrobat. One moment she was riding Johnny like a cowboy riding a bucking bronco, the next she was standing by the bed facing me, as if bracing for an attack.

Johnny also got up, although not as nimbly as the slut he had been fucking. He was completely naked and my blood boiled when I saw his massive erection flopping around. His hard-on was like a smoking gun at a crime scene, blatantly obvious proof of wrongdoing. Staring at his shamelessly swollen member, I grew enraged.

“Honey, wait,” he pleaded, his hands raised up toward me as if asking me to halt my advance.

I didn’t. I charged right toward him and swung my fist at his jaw. I yelped in pain when my knuckles connected with his face. Punching Johnny was surprisingly painful. Yet the effect of my blow was immensely satisfying. Johnny fell to the ground with a loud thump.
Then I turned my attention to the slut. Yes, she was an Amazon. She must have been five-foot-ten, at least. She was an imposing figure, but I didn’t care. I was going to kill this bitch.

Summoning all my remaining strength, I pulled my fist back then drove it forward into the middle of her pretty face. I cried in pain when my fist made contact with her nose. It was like punching a slab of concrete. She didn’t budge in the slightest, or even blink.

I stood there nursing my injured right hand while Johnny writhed on the floor, clutching at his jaw. I was pleased to see his manhood shrivel up as his arousal was no doubt replaced by embarrassment. It was simply unacceptable for Johnny to be hard at a time like this.

“Fuck you!” I screamed. “Fuck you both!”

I gave Johnny a swift kick in the ribs. He grunted in pain. Then I tried to shove the platinum-blonde slut, but I failed to move her by even a fraction of an inch. She was one tough bitch.

Irritated that I

hadn’t been able to inflict as much damage on the slut as I had on Johnny, I stormed out of the condo in fury.

Chapter Five

Several days later, I lay on the couch in the living room of the townhouse I shared with my roommates wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt depicting a tropical island getaway under the caption, “Life’s A Beach.” Those words summed it up pretty well.

It was nearly noon and I was eating a bowl of cereal while binging episodes of my favorite series Starlets, which was about a group of three young women who left their small rural town together to pursue acting careers in Hollywood. I was watching the episode where Cherry found her fiancé cheating on her with a prostitute on the night of her big movie premiere. Cherry lost her shit and stabbed the hooker with a hairpin. I could relate.

After finding Johnny in bed with that platinum-blonde whore, I had been filled with rage. I had made my way to Erica’s magic shop in tears and looked through some of her texts to find spells to invoke spontaneous human combustion, summon demons that fed on human hearts, or inflict horrible diseases on people. I wanted to hurt Johnny the way he had hurt me.

But Erica had talked me down, brewed some tea for us, and given me her shoulder to cry on. Then, ever the pragmatist, she had taught me about a spell that caused incurable impotence. It was the most common spell used by women whose men cheated on them. I had felt much better after casting the spell on Johnny. Best of luck to him trying to fuck that bitch with a limp dick. The spell was reversible but I had no intention of ever reversing the spell.

After my initial anger had subsided, it was replaced by an aching emptiness that consumed me completely. Where my heart had once been, now there was only a gaping void of nothingness. There’s an ominous feeling you get in the pit of your stomach just before you vomit, like there’s something noxious inside you and your whole body wants to expel it as quickly as possible. I had that feeling all the time now, in both my body and mind. There was a darkness clawing away at my insides, and I wanted it out of me so badly. The more I wanted it gone, the more it tore away at me. Slowly, I grew numb to the pain, and to everything else.
I had given myself over to Johnny completely. I hadn’t held anything back. He had been my entire world. My self-image had been centered on him, being his girlfriend had been my identity. My future plans had been built around becoming his wife, becoming the mother of his children. Making him happy had been my life’s goal. Now, whenever I thought about Johnny, I felt a painful sense of loss at the life that had been taken from me. The life I had planned out with Johnny had felt like a dream, and the prospect of a life without him felt like a nightmare.

As I lay on the couch, I grimly reflected on the fact that somewhere inside me there were still some remnants of the semen Johnny had deposited in me the last time we made love. A part of me was disgusted to think that I was carrying any piece of him within me, and I wanted to expel his seed from my body like I might spit out a poison. But another part of me was saddened at the thought that the last physical connection I had to Johnny was slowly deteriorating within me, that I would never again feel the reassuring warmth of his essence flowing within my body.

There was no doubt in my mind that I would never again feel Johnny within me. The memories of my life as Kelly had given me enough experience with men to know that once they cheat on you, they can never again be trusted. I would never take Johnny back after his betrayal, not under any circumstances. It was truly over. That was why it hurt so badly. I knew this was the end.

“Are you still on this shit?” Becky asked as she walked into the living room.

Becky was another one of my roommates. She was a tall redhead who stood five-foot-eight with a seductive svelte physique. As a man, I had stood several inches taller than her, but now that I was a woman with a petite build, she made me feel like a pygmy whenever I stood near her. In typical fashion, Becky was casually dressed in a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved white blouse, and a pair of red canvas shoes. Rather than cash in on her looks somehow or go to school to study something worthwhile, Becky worked as an assistant manager at a convenience store. She wasn’t the most ambitious person I had ever met, but I often admired her carefree, hedonistic lifestyle. She was a bon vivant and her only goal in life was to have a good time.

“I thought you were working today,” I said.

Becky shrugged.

“I called in sick. Work sucks. Why are you still moping around over that douchebag?”

“Don’t start with me, Becky. Ashley has already given me the whole speech about how I need to move on. I’ve got a right to feel like shit because the man I loved fucked around behind my back.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve got a right to be a miserable bitch,” Becky said as she plopped down beside me on the couch. “You were way more fun back when you treated men like carnival rides instead of getting all hung up on them. Seriously, what did this guy have that like a million other guys don’t?”

“He had my heart,” I said. “Have you never been in love?”

“Nope,” Becky said. “I love cock, yeah, but I’m not in love with cock.”

“Your loss,” I said.

“Right. I’m not the one sitting around all day crying over some asshole who couldn’t keep his pants zipped up. Can we watch something else?”

“I thought you liked Starlets.”

“I do, but I’ve already watched this episode. Oh, can we watch that reality show about girls who hunt down rich guys to date?”

“You mean Sugar Babies?” I asked.

“Yeah, that’s the one. I so want to be on that show. I have been trying to land a sugar daddy forever. The closest I ever got was that forty-year-old guy I met online who paid me to take pictures of my feet.”

Disgusted, I rolled my eyes as far back in my head as they would go.

“Why didn’t you marry him?” I asked sarcastically as I handed her the remote control.

Becky pouted and cast her eyes to the ground.

“He found another girl with prettier, younger feet,” she muttered irritably as she yanked the remote out of my hand. “Besides, I don’t think he was that rich. He was an actuary. Do they make a lot of money?”

“I have no idea,” I answered.

Becky started playing the latest episode of Sugar Babies. The show’s opening introduction showed several gorgeous young women in tight, revealing outfits going out to night clubs, hanging out at the beach dressed in bikinis, and taking flights to exotic locations like Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi, and Monaco.

One of the girls filmed walking down the Champs-Élysées in Paris carrying bloated shopping bags stared at the camera and said matter-of-factly, “I’m too beautiful to work some crappy dead-end job. I deserve to have someone pay me for looking this good.”

Another girl shown partying at night clubs in Miami looked at the camera and said, “I suck at school. I’m not smart. The smartest thing I can do is find a guy to pay all my bills for me.”

One girl filmed consulting with a plastic surgeon about breast implants said to the camera, “It’s good business sense to invest in your assets, and my best asset is my body.”

“This show is degrading,” I said.

“That’s the appeal. You’re supposed to look at these girls and pretend like you’re better than them. You’re supposed to feel better about yourself because you’re ‘above that sort of thing.’ But let’s get real, do those girls sit around on their asses wishing they were us? I don’t think so. On the other hand, I would kill to make it onto this show.”

One of the girls on the show who was being interviewed said, “Does it bother me that my boyfriend is forty years older than me? No! Age is just a number! And the only numbers that count are bank account numbers!”

Just then, I received a text message on my phone. I gasped when I saw who it was from.

“Oh my god! Johnny just texted me!”

“Please don’t tell me you’re going to crawl back to him,” Becky said.

“Of course not,” I insisted.

I sounded more like I was trying to convince myself rather than Becky.

I looked at the text.

“Kelly, I need to talk to you,” it said.

I thought about deleting the text and blocking Johnny’s number. That seemed like the sensible thing to do. But I wasn’t feeling very sensible.

“Forget it, we have nothing to talk about,” I wrote. “Lose my number, asshole.”

Johnny texted me back, “Please. I’m in trouble and I need help. I think I may have to check into an emergency room or a mental institution.”

Talk about being a drama queen. I had figured the impotence spell would drive Johnny up the wall eventually, but after only a few days he was talking like he was losing his mind.

Good. He deserved that and worse for what he had done.

“Go ask your whore for help,” I texted.

“I made a horrible mistake, and I understand if you can’t forgive me, but there’s something wrong with me and I don’t know what to do,” Johnny wrote.

I sighed. Part of me wanted to see Johnny suffer. Another part of me felt guilty about causing him so much misery. It wasn’t in my nature to enjoy inflicting pain on others.

“I’m going to step out for a bit,” I said to Becky as she continued watching Sugar Babies.

“If you fuck him, I’m going to punch you in the head when you get back,” Becky said as I went upstairs to my room.

I changed out of my sweatpants and slipped into a pair of jeans and some flip-flops. As I made my way back downstairs, I tried to figure out what I was doing. I had no desire to reconcile with Johnny. I was disgusted with him and didn’t want any kind of relationship with him. Yet, despite all that, I felt a sense of obligation toward Johnny. If he could hurt me so callously by cheating on me, it wasn’t as easy for me to hurt him back.

As I got in my car, I wrote to Johnny, “Against my better judgment, I am going over to your place. There is absolutely zero chance we can work past this, but if you have something to say, I will hear you out. Choose your words to me carefully because if you think you have it bad now, I can make your life a true living hell.”

Johnny sent me another text as I drove to his place: “Thank you.”

I found myself hesitating as I stood in front of the door to his condo. It wasn’t too late to turn around and forget about Johnny. He had it coming. But I couldn’t. As much as I hated him for betraying me, I couldn’t bring myself to abandon him.

I knocked on the door. A moment later, it opened slightly and a demure, feminine voice asked, “Kelly, is that you?”

I looked through the narrow opening in the doorway and my blood boiled as my eyes fell on a petite Latina wearing a man’s maroon dress shirt that hung loosely on her like a giant tarp. Her legs were bare and it didn’t look like she was wearing anything under that shirt. She had a thick head of long, silky black hair parted to one side with a few loose locks falling along the edge of her forehead. Her smooth, unblemished skin boasted a rich honey bronze complexion. Her almond-shaped eyes were a deep amber hue and were set along broad cheekbones and a sharp chin. Those eyes exhibited a familiar intensity. I was stunned when I noticed that she was a couple of inches shorter than me, probably standing four-foot-ten. It was rare to meet a grown woman shorter than me. The mystery girl was easy on the eyes and I was not happy to find her walking around half-naked in my ex-boyfriend’s home.

I shoved the door open and said, “Yeah, I’m Kelly! Who the fuck are you?”

I stepped toward the mystery girl with my fists raised. I wanted to make it clear to this girl that I was in no mood for bullshit.

The mystery girl raised her hands up in front of her face as if to shield herself and took several steps back.

“Kelly, wait, don’t hit me again!” she cried. “It’s me, Johnny!”

I stopped in my tracks and lowered my fists. Under ordinary circumstances, I’m not sure what I would have done. Given what had happened to me only a few months before, these were not ordinary circumstances, and her claim didn’t sound all that crazy. I closed the door behind me and glared at the girl.

“Yeah? If you’re Johnny, prove it.”

“Okay,” the girl said. “The night we first made love, when you went down on me, you said my cock tasted like pineapple. Does that sound like something I would share with anyone?”

I looked into her eyes and realized what was so familiar about them.

“Fuck,” I muttered. “Did a genie do this to you?”

“Did a what? A genie? Huh?”

“How did this happen to you?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Johnny said. “I passed out a couple of days ago. When I woke up, I was like this.”

“What do you mean you passed out?”

“I felt tired, really tired, and I just fell asleep. I think. After I got up and saw what had happened to me, I met up with my friend Ian and tried to get him to help, but he thought I was pulling some kind of prank on him. Then I went to visit my sister to ask her for help. She didn’t believe it was me. She got suspicious and thought I had done something wrong. She said she was going to the police to report me missing. For all I know the cops are on their way here now to arrest me for kidnapping myself or something. I didn’t know what else to do, so I messaged you. You’re always talking about crazy stuff like mind control and time travel and conspiracy theories. I was hoping you would have more of an open mind.”

She put her hands over her face and began to sob.

“Oh my god,” she said. “I am so fucked. What am I going to do?”

My rage dissipated. I would never forgive Johnny for cheating on me. But I knew how traumatic it could be to suddenly swap genders. Now wasn’t the time to settle scores.

I stepped up beside the girl and placed my hands on her shoulders.

“Calm down,” I said. “Crying isn’t going to help. Come over here to the couch.”

I escorted the girl to the couch and sat her down. I looked her over as I sat beside her.

“Is that shirt all you’re wearing?” I asked.

“Nothing else fits,” Johnny whined. “When I went out before, I had to fold up my pant legs and punch a new hole in my belt to keep them up. I still had to pull them up every few seconds because they kept sliding down. I looked like a clown. I figured as long as I was alone here, I may as well spare myself that hassle.”

She turned to look at me and said, “Why are you taking this so easily? Everyone else laughed or freaked out. They didn’t believe me. You’re acting like this is nothing out of the ordinary. I guess you’re even more open-minded than I thought.”

I sighed.

“Okay. First, take a deep breath. This is going to sound weird.”

“Kelly,” Johnny said, “I’m a fucking woman. My penis is gone. Where it used to be, I now have a vagina. Weird? I’ve crossed that bridge.”

“A few months ago, I was a man,” I said. “I found a genie who offered to grant me a wish. I didn’t think he was real. As a joke, I made a wish to be turned into a woman. And I ended up like this. I found a psychic who taught me magic and I learned a spell to turn me back into a man, but I decided to stay a woman because I was happier like this. Now here I am. Ta-dah.”

Johnny gave me a blank stare.

“You were born a man?”

“Technically, no,” I said. “See, the genie changed reality and made it so that I was born a woman and lived my whole life as one. No one remembers the old version of reality where I was a man except me.”

“What?”

“Don’t act so surprised. I mean, we met at a sports bar where I schooled you on my superior knowledge of football. You always said I’m not like typical girls. I’m sure this explains a lot.”

She closed her eyes tightly and rubbed her temples.

“I must be sleeping,” Johnny said. “This must be some kind of nightmare. Soon I’ll wake up in bed.”

I grunted.

“Yeah? And who will you wake up next to? Me or that blonde whore I found you fucking?”

“Can we please not get into that just now?” she pleaded.

The Johnny’s eyes opened wide.

“Wait,” Johnny said. “You said you figured out a spell to turn you back into a man. Do you still know that spell? Can you change me back?”

“Maybe. It depends on what caused this. If a genie didn’t do this then some other kind of magic must be…”

I trailed off. A light went on in my head.

“Oh my god,” I said. “I did this.”

I got up from the couch and began pacing back and forth. What had gone wrong? How could I have fucked up the spell?

“Kelly, what do you mean you did this?” Johnny asked.

I stopped pacing and stared at Johnny.

“Look, I caught you fucking that blonde. You hurt me. I died inside. I wanted you to feel the same pain I felt.”

“So you turned me into a woman?” Johnny shrieked.

“No,” I said. “Maybe. I don’t know. I cast a spell to make you impotent. It wasn’t supposed to do this. I don’t see how the spell can be responsible.”

Johnny screamed and ran her hands through her long hair.

After a moment, she took several quick, shallow breaths and said, “It’s okay. You put this spell on me. You can lift it, right? You said you can turn yourself into a man again. You can do the same for me, right?”

“Theoretically,” I said. “Magic is a tricky thing. If I fucked up the impotence spell, then maybe it’s not safe to use the physical transformation spell. That’s a hard one. It takes a lot of practice to get it right, and if you don’t do it right you can accidentally turn yourself into an inhuman abomination, or end up dead. I think we should go see Erica for advice.”

“Who the hell is Erica?”

“She’s the psychic who helped me learn magic,” I said. “She runs a magic shop. She doesn’t practice much magic herself but she knows a lot about this shit.”

“Ugh,” Johnny grunted. “How do I know you’re not just fucking with me? How do I know you’re telling me the truth?”

I raised up my right hand in front of her face.

“Whoa, asshole, stop right there,” I said. “You’re the one who was cheating on me. You don’t get to call my integrity into question. If you hadn’t cheated on me, none of this would have happened. We’d still be together and you’d still have a penis. In fact, you brought this on yourself. Why am I even bothering to help you? You can deal with this shit on your own. Have fun figuring out how to insert a tampon when you get your period.”

I made my way toward the door. Johnny got up and chased after me.

“Kelly, wait. I’m sorry. This is just a lot to deal with.”

I turned to look at Johnny and saw tears streaming down her face.

“You want proof, Johnny? Okay, here it is.”

I pulled the small bottle of powder out of my purse, recited the incantation, and sprinkled some of the powder over my head. After putting the bottle back in my purse, I walked toward the wall that divided the living room from the bedroom and stepped through it. Then I turned around and stepped back into the living room. I found Johnny staring at me with her mouth open wide.

“What do you say, Johnny? Is seeing believing or what?”

“How did you do that?” Johnny asked.

“Magic powers. I got them.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Johnny said.

I recited the incantation to become tangible again.

“Me too,” I said. “Before we go to Erica’s shop, let’s get you presentable.”

I walked back to the bedroom and found the duffel bag I had brought over a few days before sitting in the corner right where I had left it. I picked up the duffel bag and went back to the living room. I tossed the duffel bag in front of Johnny’s tiny bare feet and opened it. I reached inside and pulled out the floral print dress and wedge sandals I had worn the night I came over to make dinner for Johnny. Then I grabbed the shirt Johnny was wearing and yanked it off.

“Hey, what the fuck?” Johnny exclaimed.

She was completely naked, and for the first time I got a good look at her figure. While she was short like me, Johnny lacked curves like mine. She was lithe with a modest rear end and breasts so tiny she was practically flat-chested. She instinctively cupped her vagina with one hand and covered her chest with one arm.

“Please, bitch, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before,” I said. Then I looked over her modest figure and glanced at my own impressive chest. “If anything, you have a lot less than what I’m used to seeing.”

Johnny glared at the dress I held out to her.

“You expect me to wear that?” she demanded, still trying to cover herself up as best she could.

“It’s like you said, your old clothes don’t fit and we’ve got limited options.”

“I’m not a cross-dresser,” Johnny said. “Why don’t you wear the dress and give me the t-shirt and jeans you’re wearing?”

“I don’t have time for this shit,” I said as I started walking toward the door again.

“Okay, I’ll wear the fucking dress,” Johnny relented.

“Good girl,” I said with a smirk.

She reached for the dress and began to slip it on over her head.

“Forgetting something?” I said as I held up the bikini-cut panties and bra I had worn with the dress.

“No way,” she said. “I’ll wear the dress and the shoes, but I am not wearing my girlfriend’s underwear. That’s where I draw the line.”

“Ex-girlfriend, bitch,” I said. “Suit yourself. But if a breeze lifts up your skirt you’re going to give everyone around you an eyeful.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Johnny said as she slipped into the dress.

Once she had the dress on, I pulled up the zipper in the back. The dress didn’t look nearly as flattering on her as it did on me. She didn’t have the butt or cleavage to accentuate the outfit’s best features.

Then Johnny put on the wedge sandals.

“How do women walk around in these things?” she said as she ambled around the living room clumsily.

“Just be thankful they’re not heels,” I said.

“Can we go to the magic shop now?” she asked.

I looked her over from head to toe.

“You’re not going to win any beauty pageants looking like that, but it’s better than wearing men’s clothes that hang on you like a potato sack.”

“Thanks,” Johnny said irritably.

“Come on, I’ll drive.”

Johnny followed me toward the door. I stopped abruptly and turned to look at her.

“By the way,” I said, “I’m going to call you Jane.”

“Why?” Jane asked.

“Because it’s weird to call you Johnny when you look like that,” I said. “And because it’ll irritate you.”

Jane sighed as she followed me out the door.

Chapter Six

“Uh-oh,” Erica said as Jane and I walked into her magic shop. “Here we go again.”

She was laying out some shiny multicolored stones in a display case near a shelf filled with bizarre-looking statuettes.

“Don’t keep me in the dark, girl,” I said to Erica. “Tell me what you see.”

As Erica continued to lay out the stones, she said, “Your friend looks like a man who had his masculinity stripped away.”

“How do you know I’m really a man?” Jane asked in astonishment.

“I’m psychic,” Erica said.

“You can read my mind?” Jane asked.

“No, I can see your aura,” Erica explained.

“This is Jane,” I told Erica. “Up until recently, she was my ex-boyfriend Johnny. I’m worried I may have accidentally changed Johnny’s sex when I cast that impotence spell.”

Erica chuckled.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Erica said. “I helped you prepare the spell. I saw you cast it. Nothing you could have done would have caused this. Just by looking at Jane I can tell your spell isn’t responsible. Her aura looks like something drained her manhood away.”

“You mean like the way a djinn drains mana?” I asked.

Erica shook her head.

“No. That leaves completely different telltale signs on someone’s aura. I’ve never seen something quite like this. Jane’s aura more closely resembles the aura of someone who has had their blood drained by a vampire.”

“Vampires are real?” Jane asked.

“Don’t get Erica started,” I cautioned Jane. “I think we have our hands full without getting into a conversation about vampires. Erica, do you think I can fix this with a transformation spell?”

Erica finished setting up the stones and closed the display case. She came over to me and Jane and stared at us.

“Maybe,” Erica said. “It depends on what caused this. You know from experience how tricky transformation spells can be, Kelly. I’d hold off on going that route for now. Jane, how did you end up like this?”

Jane sighed and rolled her eyes.

“I’m getting tired of rehashing this,” Jane said. “I passed out a couple of days ago. When I woke up, I was a woman.”

Erica placed her hands on her hips and glared at Jane.

“If you want my help, I’m going to need you to be honest with me,” Erica said. “I’m a busy woman. I don’t have time to waste. I can tell from your aura when you lie or hold something back. So come clean. What exactly were you doing just before you transformed?”

Jane looked at me for a moment, then looked at Erica. Jane was visibly anxious about something.

“Fine,” Jane said. “It happened the night Kelly found me in bed with Astrid. I felt awful after Kelly left, so Astrid and I just talked for a while. Then later Astrid wanted to get back to what we had been doing. But by then, I wasn’t able to get…intimate with Astrid. She tried everything she could to get me…you know. But it just wouldn’t happen. I guess Kelly’s impotence spell worked just fine. Astrid got upset and left. Not long after that, I passed out. When I regained consciousness, I was like this. There. That’s what happened.”

Hearing Jane recount what had happened that night caused my rage to resurface. But I kept it at bay. I couldn’t let my emotions get the better of me.

“Hmmm,” Erica murmured. “Interesting. It doesn’t sound like there was a problem with the impotence spell. I just don’t see how making you impotent could have drained you of your masculinity or physically transformed you into a woman. It’s a mystery. How well do you know Astrid?”

Jane shot me another glance, as if fearful about how I would react.

“Don’t hold back on my account,” I said to Jane. “You wanted my help, well, here it is. Tell Erica what she wants to know.”

“I met her last week,” Johnny said. “Astrid is an interior designer. My boss hired her to redecorate his office. We talked for a few minutes at work. One thing led to another and…let’s just say that mistakes were made.”

“Did you notice anything unusual about her?” Erica asked.

“Unusual?” Jane said. “As in what? Did she use to be a man? Does she cast spells? Does she hang out at secret magic shops? The bar has been raised on unusual recently.”

“There’s nothing secret about my shop,” Erica said. “It’s one of the top results when you run a search online. I’m just asking if anything stood out about her.”

“Not that I noticed,” Jane said.

“Bullshit,” I said. “You certainly noticed her supermodel body. I saw you enjoying it with my own eyes. And I noticed that bitch was built as hard as a linebacker. I knocked you to the ground with one punch, but hitting her was like punching a brick wall. I’d file that under unusual.”

“Maybe,” Erica said. “I don’t see how Astrid being stronger than average could explain Jane’s gender swap. I’d say a transformation spell is worth a try, although I’m always reluctant to recommend fiddling with any magical change unless you can explain the cause.”

Jane turned to me and gripped both my shoulders with her hands. She gazed into my eyes with a desperate expression on her face.

“Kelly, please, I’m begging you, try the transformation spell,” Jane pleaded. “I’m sorry about what I did, but I don’t want to stay like this.”

I removed Jane’s hands from my shoulders and pushed her back a couple of steps.

“Calm your tits, bitch,” I said. “Being a woman isn’t some sort of death sentence. If you try it out for a while, you’ll probably prefer it. Look, I’ll do the transformation spell, but not because you’re getting your panties in a bunch over this. When I was transformed, it was because I wished for it. Granted, I was drunk off my ass at the time, but I did wish for it. And the genie who granted my wish had the presence of mind to alter reality so no one thought there was anything strange about the fact that I had become a woman. You didn’t ask for this. And reality sure as hell hasn’t changed, so sooner or later the police are going to come looking for you, and we’re going to have to come up with some creative answers to their questions. You’re not worth that hassle. I’m going to do the spell because it’s just easier for everybody.”

Jane nodded.

“Got it.”

“Good,” I said. “Now give me your bankroll.”

Jane handed me a thick wad of cash. After realizing her family and friends weren’t going to believe what had happened to her, Jane had withdrawn as much cash as she could out of her bank accounts on the assumption that she would soon lose access to them. That had been a prudent move.

“Erica, load me up on ingredients for a transformation spell,” I said.

Erica looked at Jane.

“These supplies don’t come cheap and there are no refunds,” Erica said. “It’s your money. As long as you’re fine with that, I’ll go ahead and provide Kelly with what she needs for the spell.”

“It’s fine,” Jane said.

As Erica walked around her shop grabbing ingredients off the shelves, Jane said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask. Why did you name your shop Madam Zolga’s Occult Science Academy? It’s not a very catchy name from a marketing standpoint.”

As she searched for ingredients, Erica said, “I used the word ‘academy’ because I wanted potential customers to know that they could learn to practice magic here. And I used the phrase ‘occult science’ because when I used the word ‘magic’ in the store’s name, I had people showing up here looking for books on card tricks, linking ring sets, whoopee cushions, joy buzzers, and top hats with rabbits hidden in them. Do you think you could have come up with a more marketable name?”

“How about Spell It Like It Is?” Jane suggested.

“Or Trick Shot,” I offered.

“Cast Away,” Jane added.
I said, “Spells ‘R’ Us.”

The two of us blurted out more suggestions.

“Magic Is In The Air.”

“Tricks of the Trade.”

“Rest A Spell.”

“Wicca-pedia.”

“Through the Looking Glass.”

“The Gift of the Magic.”

“Every Witch Way.”

“The Crystal Ballroom.”

“The Wizard’s Wand.”

“A Touch of Magic.”

Erica smirked.

“Cute,” Erica said. “Your last recommendation had a nice ring to it, Kelly. A Touch of Magic. It sounds tasteful. Here’s everything you’ll need for the spell.”

Erica laid several jars, boxes, and vials out on the counter beside the cash register. She rang us up and told us the total charges. Jane’s jaw dropped.

“Yeah, magic doesn’t come cheap,” I said.

I pulled out several bills from Jane’s bankroll and handed them to Erica. Jane’s bankroll was much smaller after Erica had been paid.

Chapter Seven

As I drove back to Jane’s place with her, I said, “I’m going to ask one more time. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“For the last time, yes,” Jane said. “I don’t care if I end up turned into a toad or turned inside out. I’ll take my chances and absolve you of all liability for whatever happens to me.”

“All right,” I said. “As long as you understand the risk.”

I didn’t think Jane could understand the risk. She didn’t know a damn thing about how magic worked. When I had begun learning transformation spells to become a man again, I had experimented on rabbits. Some of my first efforts had resulted in hideous abominations, unrecognizable masses of wriggling fur and flesh. The lucky experiments had died quickly. I had been compelled to euthanize the unlucky few that hadn’t immediately died. My spell casting skills had improved considerably since then, but when it came to magic, there was a lot of room for error.

As we pulled up to Jane’s residential complex late in the afternoon, I noticed two police cars parked outside on the street. I pulled over to the side of the road before getting too close to the complex’s main entrance.

“It looks like your sister followed through on her threat to call the cops,” I said.

“We don’t know that for sure,” Jane said. “They could be here for something completely unrelated to me.”

Jane made a good point. And it gave me an idea.

“We should find out what they’re up to,” I said.

“How?” Jane asked.

I reached into my purse for the glass jar full of powder.

“Do exactly what I say,” I told Jane as I sprinkled some of the pale yellow powder onto her head.

After I sprinkled some of the powder over myself, I spoke an incantation different from the one I had used earlier.

“What did you do to me?” Jane asked nervously.

I pointed to the vanity mirror and said, “Take a look.”

Jane peered into the mirror.

“I don’t see anything. Holy shit. I don’t have a reflection.”

“I cast a cloaking spell to make both of us invisible and intangible,” I explained.

“If you’re invisible, why can I see you?” Jane said. “And why can you see me?”

“Because I cast the spell on both of us. We can see each other, but no one else can.”

I pushed through the driver-side door and stepped out of my car. I walked over to the passenger-side and motioned for Jane to join me.

Jane wore an expression of fascination on her face as she made her way through the car door and stood beside me.

“Weird,” Jane said. “If we’re intangible, how are we able to breathe the air? What keeps us from falling through the Earth’s surface? How are we able to move with the Earth as it revolves around the sun? How can we speak and hear one another if…”

“Jane, there are perfectly rational scientific explanations for all those questions,” I said. “But right now, we have more immediate concerns.”

“Right. Sorry.”

“Just follow me and don’t touch any mirrors,” I said. “If you do, that’ll either cause the spell to wear off or transport you to another dimension. I’m not sure exactly.”

“Is that a joke?” Jane asked.
I shook my head.

“No.”

Jane and I walked past the two police cars and made our way to the complex’s main entrance. The doors were part of a glass façade and could only be opened by swiping a key card over a scanner or inputting a password at a small terminal. I just stepped through the door and Jane followed me. We went up the building’s stairs to Jane’s floor.

There was a uniformed police officer standing in the hallway outside Jane’s door. He looked to be standing guard. Behind him, the door to Jane’s condo was open and we could hear people talking inside.

Jane pointed to the cop outside the door and said in a whisper, “Can he hear us talk?”

“Not unless he has an enchantment in place for that express purpose,” I said, not bothering to lower my voice. “But don’t touch anyone. If you run your hand through someone, it’ll give them a weird sensation. You don’t want to spook anyone.”

Jane followed me as I stepped around the cop and entered the condo.

We found two more uniformed police officers standing in the living room with a middle-aged black man with close-cropped hair wearing a charcoal suit, blue shirt, and silver tie. The man in the charcoal suit had a badge on a leather pad displayed on his belt. Beside the badge was a holster with a pistol tucked inside.

One of the officers said to the man in the suit, “The building superintendent let us in about an hour ago. We talked to one of the neighbors who said she hasn’t seen the owner in days, not since she overheard a fight between the owner and his girlfriend. The girlfriend stormed out of here looking upset, and the neighbor saw a tall blonde woman she didn’t recognize leave later that night. Just before we got here, the neighbor says she saw the girlfriend show up again and leave with another female who has been seen around the property since the fight. The girlfriend is a black-haired Hispanic female about five feet tall and was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and flip flops when she left. The other woman is also a black-haired Hispanic female, slightly shorter, and was wearing a dress with a floral pattern when she left with the girlfriend. The second female matches the description that the family member gave us of the woman who approached her claiming to be the missing person.”

Jane and I exchanged anxious glances.

The man in the suit said, “Are there any surveillance cameras that may have recorded footage of these people entering and exiting the premises?”

The officer nodded.

“Several. The superintendent is pulling the footage now. The neighbor says the girlfriend’s first name is Kelly and she’s been seeing the missing person for months. She doesn’t know anything else about the girlfriend. We’ve reached out to the family member for more information about the girlfriend.”

The man in the suit looked around the condo.

“No signs of a break-in or of a struggle,” the man in the suit observed. “Let’s take another look around then get out of here. We’ll leave a patrol car to wait for the mystery woman to return, then talk to her. For now, I want to find the girlfriend and talk to her. This sounds like it could all just be some lover’s quarrel, and I don’t want to get too carried away at this point.”

I looked at Jane and said, “I’d say this is definitely about you.”

“Okay, you were right,” Jane said. “It’s only been a few days. I didn’t think the police moved this quickly.”

“Let’s head over to my place and complete the spell,” I said. “I don’t want to be the prime suspect for a murder that never happened. The sooner you can meet up with the police and tell them you’re fine, the sooner we can put this behind us.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jane said.

We left the condo and made our way back downstairs. Once both of us were standing beside my car, I spoke the incantation to reverse the spell. Then we got in my car and I drove home.

Chapter Eight

“What language is that you’re speaking when you cast spells?” Jane asked as I drove home. “I thought it was Latin when you first spoke it, but that doesn’t sound like Latin or any language I ever heard.”

“It’s an ancient Elvish dialect,” I said. “Humans learned a lot about magic from Elves. Even when humans began making their own spells, they used Elvish to make them. Most magic practitioners use some form of Elvish to cast spells. It’s like a common language for them the way Latin used to be for scientists and philosophers in Europe.”

“I need to learn to stop asking questions,” Jane said. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that you used to be a man. I always knew there was something different about you. You didn’t think like a typical hot girl or act like one. You knew way too much about football and you acted like a nerd who read too many science-fiction stories and went to too many comic book conventions. I thought it was awesome to meet a gorgeous girl with the same interests I had. I never imagined you were that way because you used to be a guy just like me.”

I glowered at Jane.

“And if you had known I used to be a man, would that have changed how you felt about me?” I demanded.

Jane was silent for a moment.

“I honestly don’t know,” she said. “I thought you were the perfect girl. Brains and beauty, a sense of humor, and great in bed. You’re the whole package. I don’t think I could have walked away from that, even if I had known you used to have a penis.”

Jane’s answer evoked some mixed feelings in me. On the one hand, I was relieved that knowledge of my sex change didn’t change the way Jane felt about me. On the other hand, given what had happened, that claim lacked credibility and I was upset that she could think I was so gullible.

“You did walk away from this, asshole,” I said. “I loved you. I wanted to marry you and raise kids with you. And you threw that all away by crawling into bed with some random slut you just met. So spare me your bullshit.”

Beside me in the passenger seat, I could hear Jane whimpering. I glanced over at her and could see tears sliding down her cheeks.

“I don’t understand what happened,” Jane said. “I’ve never been as happy as I was when I was with you. Everything was perfect. Something came over me when I met Astrid. There was nothing special about her, but for some reason I was drawn to her. I didn’t want to get involved with her. I regretted it even as it was happening. I knew it was a mistake. I wanted to stop. I just couldn’t. I don’t understand why. It was like I was drunk or something. I’d give anything to take it back. I wish I had never met Astrid.”

“Do not use that word around me,” I said. “Wishing never helped anyone. And one wish can fuck up your life like you can’t imagine. Don’t bother trying to earn my sympathy. I’m close to tossing your ass on the side of the road and letting you figure out how to get yourself out of this mess.”

Jane sniffed and tried to get her sobbing under control.

“You’re right,” she said. “I fucked up and I have to live with that.”

We drove the rest of the way to the townhouse in tense silence.

I parked in the garage below the townhouse and led Jane up the stairs into the kitchen. I looked around the townhouse and was glad to find that my roommates were gone. I didn’t want to have to come up with an explanation for who Jane was or why she was there. We continued up the stairs to my bedroom on the second floor.

I instructed Jane to sit down at my desk and keep quiet. Then I grabbed the ingredients we had bought from Erica and carefully mixed them in the bathroom attached to my room. I put together a noxious concoction, a luminous green fluid that emitted an eerie glow, and poured it into a cup. I carried the potion back into my bedroom and set it down on my desk.

“In a moment, I’m going to cast the spell and have you drink that,” I told Jane. “Listen to me carefully. That is the most vile goop you will ever drink, but once you start drinking it, you must swallow every last drop. Once I recite the incantation, you need to focus on your physical male form. You cannot let your mind wander or think about anything else. If the spell works, you will go through an agonizing physical transformation. Your body will be reshaped as if it were made of clay. And it will hurt like fuck. Any questions? And I remind you that you haven’t received a pleasant answer to a single question you’ve asked me all day.”

Jane shook her head.

“No questions. Let’s get this over with.”

“Good,” I said. “Take off my dress. I like it and I don’t want you to ruin it when you transform. There’s an oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants in the closet you can wear if this works.”

Without a word of protest but with a forlorn look on her face, Jane removed the dress and took off the wedge sandals she had borrowed from me.

I couldn’t help but notice how Jane’s new body contrasted with her old one. Whereas her male body had been a gigantic mass of beautiful hard muscles, her female body was delicate and graceful. It was unmistakably feminine, but it was so frail that it looked more like the body of an adolescent girl just beginning to blossom into womanhood than it did like the body of a fully developed adult woman. I had salivated at the mere sight of Jane’s male body. While I could appreciate the beauty of Jane’s feminine form, I found nothing about it physically attractive. She had nothing that interested me.

I recited the incantation for the transformation spell.

“Go ahead and drink the potion,” I commanded Jane.

She dutifully reached for the potion and poured it into her mouth. From the expression on her face, I could tell she found the potion as nauseating as I had. There was no doubt that she was motivated to become a man again because she drank the entire potion in one gulp. It took extraordinary desperation to do that.

When she was done drinking the potion, Jane put the cup down on the desk and gave me a blank stare. For a moment, nothing happened.

Then she shrieked as her flesh rippled like a pool of water into which someone had tossed a stone. She grabbed her sides and bent over. Jane screamed and fell to the ground. I took a few steps back. She writhed on the ground and continued screaming as her body contorted in unnatural ways.

Jane’s arms and legs lengthened momentarily before suddenly retracting. Her small muscles swelled up to several times their size before deflating again. Her hair receded into her scalp and grew short before returning to its impressive length. A large fleshy appendage stretched out from between her legs for a few seconds, then shriveled away into nothingness.

Something was wrong.

Jane tossed and turned on the ground for nearly a minute, screaming in agony the entire time. Finally her body stopped rippling and she lay still. I could tell she was still alive because I could hear her taking quick breaths, as if hyperventilating. Her physical form remained unchanged.

I fell to the ground beside Jane.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Can you hear me?”

Jane mumbled in a small voice, “What…the fuck…did…you…do to me?”

Chapter Nine

I read through the text carefully. There had to be an explanation. I had done the spell correctly. Somewhere in the small library of magic books I owned there had to be an answer.

Jane appeared to be physically fine after the failed spell. She was exhausted and was sleeping in my bed while I searched through my books. I had thought about taking her to the hospital, but doing that would have created too many complications. Jane had no health insurance, no social security number, no identification, no legal existence. And the police were looking for her. Putting all that aside, what could a hospital do for her? They didn’t have any treatments for botched transformation spells or unexplained mystical sex changes.

I was reading a text on the history of sorcery in North America. All the books I had on performing transformation spells confirmed that I had carried out the spell correctly. I was trying to learn about the nature and mechanics of transformation spells, and the best way to do that was by figuring out where the knowledge for performing them had come from.

The spell I had used was a refined version of transformation spells commonly used by witches who had brought the knowledge with them to the New World when they had immigrated to the English colonies in the seventeenth century. Witches often used transformation spells to alter their appearances or the physical traits of their familiars to outwit their enemies. This was in contrast to sorcerers from medieval Europe and the pre-Islamic Middle East from whom witches had learned about transformation spells. Sorcerers had used transformation spells as a weapon to neutralize their enemies. The biggest shortcoming to using transformation spells as a weapon was that, although they worked well on mere mortals, their effects were limited on the supernatural entities that tended to be the biggest challenge to sorcerers. Supernatural beings like djinn, leviathans, satyrs, and nymphs, among others, were effectively immune to transformation spells.

I glanced over at Jane as she continued sleeping. She hardly looked like a leviathan to me. No, I didn’t think Jane was a supernatural being. But maybe that was an idea worth investigating.

I received a text message on my phone. I read the message and immediately ran downstairs to the front door. I opened the door and found Erica standing outside.

“I owe you one,” I said as I led her inside.

“I don’t usually make house calls, but your boyfriend’s situation has piqued my interest,” Erica said.

“Ex-boyfriend,” I said. “Ex-boy, actually. I would throw her out now if a part of me didn’t feel somehow responsible for what has happened to her.”

As we made our way up the stairs, Erica asked, “Why do you feel responsible?”

“Her transformation happened after I cast the impotence spell,” I said. “For all I know, that somehow caused it. Then when I tried to fix things with the transformation spell, she ended up suffering in agony.”

“I already told you the impotence spell had nothing to do with this,” Erica said. “And it seems pretty obvious that she is responsible for the failure of the transformation spell. It takes great focus and concentration to make the spell work properly. Jane, as you call her, is obviously under too much stress to perform the spell correctly. She’s lucky to be alive. On the other hand, maybe you are responsible for her sex change after all.”

We stopped in front of my bedroom door.

“What do you mean?”

“I was thinking about what you told me about traveling to the djinn world and altering reality,” Erica explained. “I mentioned the possibility that maybe you tapped into something that allows the djinn to grant wishes. Maybe you still retain that power. It’s just a thought, but maybe you made this happen in the same way that you purportedly made reality change.”

I didn’t know what to say. The idea sounded far-fetched on its face. But everything that had happened to me since I first found the djinn who had transformed me into a woman seemed far-fetched. That didn’t make any of it less real.

“That’s a disturbing thought,” I said.

“Like I said, it’s just a thought.”

We stepped into my bedroom. Erica walked over to the bed where Jane was sleeping.

“What a strange aura,” Erica said. “It looks like the aura of a virile young man, except he’s missing his manhood. It’s like finding your car with the engine missing.”

Erica reached into the small black leather purse she was carrying and withdrew a deck of cards. She sat down at my desk and began laying out the cards. I was expecting to see tarot cards with mythical figures like death and the devil. Instead, it was just a regular deck of playing cards.

“I thought you were going to read cards to figure out what’s going on with Jane,” I said.

“I am,” Erica said. “I don’t need one of those ridiculous novelty decks to read cards. I can do it with a regular deck you can buy at any supermarket.”

“I thought you needed one of those tarot card sets with all the creepy symbols,” I said.

“Tarot cards are just playing cards with different suits,” Erica said. “There’s nothing special or magical about them. Now let me focus.”

Erica shuffled the cards and laid them out in four rows. She quickly rearranged them and placed them in a grid-like pattern. She spent several minutes moving the cards around on my desk. She looked for all the world like she was playing solitaire.

“Hmmm,” Erica muttered. “Interesting.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m not entirely sure Jane is human.”

“What?”

Erica examined the cards laid out on the desk closely.

“According to the cards, Jane’s body and spirit have been altered,” Erica said. “Her new form isn’t bound by the same limitations as normal humans. Yet her form does have limitations. She has a strong need for something she’s missing.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

Erica peered at Jane’s sleeping form.

“It means you should find this Astrid woman,” Erica said. “She may have done something to Jane to cause this. You need to find the other woman, Kelly. And figure out what she did to your ex-boyfriend.”

Fantastic. The key to helping Jane and getting my life back on track was to find the one person in the world I never wanted to see again.

Chapter Ten

“You look like you haven’t slept in days,” Nadine said as we sat in our seats waiting for class to start.

“I feel like I haven’t slept in weeks,” I said.

After failing to transform Jane back into a man the night before, I had been up late researching transformation spells and the entities known to be immune to them. The fact that Erica’s card reading had led her to conclude that Jane might no longer be human provided some insight into the bizarre situation. I had shared what I had learned about transformation spells with Erica, and we were both clinging to the theory that somehow Jane had been transformed by her encounter with Astrid into something other than the woman she appeared to be on the surface.

I had shared my theory with Jane that morning when she finally woke up. She had freaked out. She was already upset about the failed transformation spell, but being told there was a chance she was no longer human pushed her over the edge.

I told her that I would seek out Astrid and learn more about her. Maybe if Astrid really was involved in Jane’s transformation, I could figure out what had happened and turn Jane back into Johnny.

I told my roommates that Jane was my friend visiting from out of town for a few days. While I went to class, Jane was hanging out at the townhouse, probably going out of her mind. On the bright side, she was close to my size and was able to fit into my clothes. She had borrowed one of my t-shirts, a pair of jeans, and some old sneakers to wear for the day. I had tried to convince her to put on some underwear, too, but she refused. Wearing women’s underwear was more than she could handle at the moment.

“Are you still upset over your breakup?” Claudia asked.

I had told Nadine and Claudia that I had broken up with my boyfriend, but not why. And, of course, I had kept quiet about his transformation into Jane.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve been on a sort of emotional roller coaster.”

“Try to stay positive,” Claudia said. “You know what they say, God never closes a door without opening a window.”

“Yeah, you’re totally hot,” Nadine said. “You can get any guy you want. You should use this as an opportunity to trade up.”

I didn’t feel particularly hot. I had left home in a rush with barely any time to do my makeup. I had thrown on a blue short-sleeved gingham dress with a square neckline and slipped into a pair of cocoa-colored ankle strap sandals with two-inch heels. I didn’t have time to style my hair, either. I felt like a frumpy Dorothy Gale rather than a sexpot.

“Men are a dime-a-dozen,” I said. “Any straight guy with a pulse will sleep with me. But finding a guy who cares what’s on my mind, who can have a conversation with me, that’s like looking for a glass of ice water in the Sahara. You guys know how men are, all they care about is sex and they’ll say anything to get in bed with you. I’m glad God was kind enough to open a window after he closed that door, that at least gives me the option of jumping out that window .”

“Don’t be so glum,” Nadine said. “Look, there’s a tall glass of water for you.”

I looked over at where Nadine was staring and saw Dylan as he entered the classroom and took his seat a couple of rows away. He saw me looking in his direction, smiled, and waved at me. I smiled and waved back.

I thought back to the way I had handled my last breakup in college. I had locked myself up in my dorm room and cried for a long time after I had found Paul in bed with another girl. Then my roommate at the time, a girl named Molly who was chronically single, had insisted on taking me out to a campus party to find a rebound guy. I had found one. Then another. And another. I had gone through men like tissue paper since college. How many guys had I slept with before I met Johnny? More than would fit in the classroom where I was sitting. A lot more.

I had given up that lifestyle after transforming into Kelly. I thought it had been an improvement. It didn’t feel like an improvement after finding the man I loved in bed with another woman…and then finding that he had become a woman. In fact, the no-strings-attached approach to men was starting to look a lot better.

“Wow,” Claudia said. “Dylan is such a cute boy. You’re so lucky.”

“What?” I said.

“I mean because he’s into you,” Claudia said. “The way he’s always making excuses to talk to you and giving you looks.”

“You should make a move on him,” Nadine said. “There are already a bunch of other skanks trying to sink their claws into him. Now that you’re single, you should get your claws into him first. A guy like that isn’t going to stay on the market for long.”

I snorted derisively.

“Guys like that are always on the market,” I said. “He’s probably with two or three girls already who think they’re exclusive with him. I’d just be another notch on his belt…Wait. Did you just call me a skank?”

“Oh, Kelly, don’t let one bad apple spoil the orchard for you,” Claudia said. “Not every man is a cheater. Adultery is a sin. There are good God-fearing men out there who understand that.”

“Absolutely,” Nadine said. “My husband Hank would never cheat. He knows a good thing when he sees it. Plus, he knows I would cut his dick off if he ever touched another woman.”

“I think you’re both naïve,” I said. “Trust me. I have lots of experience with men. Lots of men. And I’m not being bitter about what happened with Johnny. It’s in a man’s nature to constantly go after the things he wants. To women, sex is like this sacred act of intimacy that carries all this baggage with it. For men, sex is like a handshake. And maybe that’s the better approach to it. Maybe we as women should treat sex as a hobby instead of an act of love. Maybe it’s better to sleep around with different guys and not get too attached to any one of them.”

“Fornication is a sin,” Claudia said.
“So is pride,” I said as I glared at Claudia. Then I looked at Nadine and said, “So is envy. The difference is fornication is more fun than either.”

“I’m going to have to take your word for that,” Claudia said. “I’m saving myself for marriage.”

“I didn’t,” Nadine said. “I went through a slut phase before I met Hank. Meh. It got old fast.”

Before we could continue our debate on the merits of promiscuity over monogamy, our civil procedure instructor, Professor Cameron, entered the classroom and made her way to the front of the room. The class fell silent.

Professor Cameron was a middle-aged woman with dark brown hair and an athletic build. She was dressed in black leather boots with four-inch heels, a dark gray ankle length skirt, and a black long-sleeve blouse. She walked with a confident strut.

Professor Cameron turned to the class and said, “Before I start today’s introductory lecture on personal jurisdiction and subject matter jurisdiction, I’d like to put a question to you. Why do we as a society create rules?”

There was nothing but silence for several minutes. Then someone at the back of the room spoke up.

“Because we don’t want people doing whatever they want?” the student said.

“Why? What would be the problem with that?”

“People are selfish. If we’re allowed to do whatever we want, some of us will do things that are harmful, like steal or hurt one another,” the student responded.

“That’s an interesting take on human nature,” Professor Cameron said. “You’ll notice, however, that despite all our laws, people still steal, kill one another, engage in all sorts of harmful behavior. Creating laws against harmful behavior doesn’t prevent that behavior. If that’s the purpose of our laws, they’re not very successful.”

“But if we didn’t pass laws against those kinds of things, more people would do them,” another student at the front of the class said.

“What you’re saying is that our laws have a deterrent effect,” Professor Cameron said. “That they’re designed to modify human behavior. That’s the real crux of what all of you are here to study. The laws exist to help control people. Which brings me to the subject of this class. If our laws are designed to control people, then the importance of civil procedure becomes clear. Civil procedure concerns the rules we use to apply the laws, the rules we use to control the law. If you can master these rules and master the practice of law, you will carry on your shoulders the heavy burden of helping to control human behavior.”

That was an eerie thought. Professor Cameron had a bizarre perspective on the practice of law. She made being a lawyer sound so authoritarian.

“That’s a very backwards way of looking at things,” I blurted out.

“Excuse me?” Professor Cameron said.

Every pair of eyes in the classroom was on me. I swallowed hard. I hadn’t intended to say that aloud. But since I had spoken up, I felt obligated to follow through.

“What I mean is, this country was founded on the rule of law to ensure personal liberty and empower people to choose how they want to live through free elections,” I said. “To say that our laws exist to control people sort of goes against everything our society stands for.”

Professor Cameron grinned.

“Miss Rodriguez, is it?” she said. “That’s a fascinating point. Let’s develop that thought. You’re aware that ours is a common law system. Do you understand what that means?”

“It means judges interpret the law when they rule on cases and their interpretations become binding legal precedent,” I said.

Professor Cameron nodded.

“Yes, but it is a little more complex than that,” she said. “In our common law system, the federal and state legislatures pass laws, but they’re not the only ones who make laws. In ruling on cases, judges also create laws. This system doesn’t just go back to the creation of the Republic. It goes back further than the English colonies. This system goes back to medieval England, back when judges were appointed by the king. The authority of those magistrates came directly from the king, whose own authority was derived from divine right. Our system of laws goes back to a time when torture was common place, when refusing to recognize the authority of the king was punishable by death, and human beings could be owned as property. Our legal system is far older than our society, and goes back to a time when lofty ideas like personal liberty were trampled under ideas like the divine right of kings. What does that tell you about the purpose of our laws, Miss Rodriguez?”

“Uh, I guess that means that maybe our laws aren’t as progressive as I thought,” I said sheepishly.

“Maybe,” Professor Cameron said. “I want you to reflect on that. I want all of you to reflect on that. As we study civil procedure in this class, keep in mind the origins of our legal system and the purpose of that system. Do that, and you will achieve a better understanding of what you learn in this class.”

“Talk about being ballsy and reckless,” Nadine said after class as we walked out.

“Yeah, it took a lot of guts to speak up like that,” Claudia agreed.

“It’s not like I planned to say anything,” I said. “My mouth just has a life of its own sometimes.”

As we walked out of the classroom and down the hall, I noticed Dylan out of the corner of my eye.

“Speaking of feeling ballsy and reckless, I’m about to let my mouth do its thing again,” I said.

I minced up to Dylan and said, “Hey, how’s it going?”

Dylan turned to me and flashed a smile that showed off a mouthful of bright white teeth.

“I’m good,” he said. “I can’t say I’m feeling as bold as you are. That was quite a performance back there.”

“Oh, that. Well, my mouth likes to run off on me. I have impulse control issues. Don’t read too much into it. I’m just glad Professor Cameron didn’t chew me out.”

“No, if anything she seemed impressed by the way you spoke up,” I said.

“I hope so,” I said. “I was also hoping you’d be interested in getting together to study.”

“Sure,” Dylan said. “I was planning to ask you the same thing. Let’s meet up tonight, if you’re free.”

“Okay,” I said, failing to consider the million other things going on in my life at the moment that weighed against the idea. “I’ll text you my address.”

“It’s a date,” Dylan said as he sauntered off.

After Dylan had left, Claudia and Nadine came up beside me.

“Tell me you did not ask Dylan out,” Claudia said.

“Like I said before, my mouth just has a life of its own sometimes.”

“What are you planning to do with him once you have him all to yourself?” Nadine asked suggestively.

I shrugged.

“I’ll find out when it happens,” I said.

Chapter Eleven

I parked my car across the street from a nondescript office building. It was mid-afternoon and I was done with class for the day. I took a look around to make sure no one was watching me, then I sprinkled some of the yellow powder over my head and recited the incantation. Once I was cloaked, I stepped out of my car and crossed the street. I entered the office building and took the stairs up to the third floor.

A quick online search had told me that Astrid had her office in this building. Sure enough, I found a suite with a small plaque out front that read, “Fantastic Visions Interior Design by Astrid Nilsen.”

As I stepped through the front door, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. What little information I was able to find about Astrid online indicated that she was nothing more than an in-demand interior designer. What could I look for that would serve as a red flag to explain Jane’s gender swap? Glowing red eyes? Horns? A bubbling cauldron? I was grasping at straws. Maybe I was trying too hard to avoid the obvious conclusion that whatever had happened to Jane was my fault. But even if I had screwed up with magic, I hadn’t been able to figure out how, and I had to explore every possibility, however unlikely.

When I went through the door to Astrid’s office suite, I found myself in a waiting room with a red-haired receptionist sitting behind a desk on the phone.

“Yes Mister Garret, Astrid will give you a call back tomorrow to go over her plans for your foyer,” the receptionist said. “It’s no trouble at all.”

I walked past the waiting room area and wandered around the office. It looked perfectly mundane at first glance. People walked about dressed in business casual answering phones, typing on keyboards, and chatting in hallways.

Eventually I made my way to a large office toward the back where I found Astrid on the phone behind a massive mahogany executive desk. My muscles tensed as I watched her. Here was the miserable wretch of a woman who had completely ruined my perfect life. I wanted to hurt her. But I knew how important it was not to let my emotions get out of hand. I restrained myself and remembered why I was there.

“Don’t worry, Estella, I know the proposed layout for your living room is more vibrant than what you’re used to, but it’s going to complement your home décor perfectly,” Astrid said to whoever was on the other end of the line.

She looked every bit as glamorous as I remembered her being. Astrid was tall, thin, blonde, and beautiful. She was wearing a tight-fitting strapless cerulean dress that accentuated her impressive figure. Acknowledging her physical beauty only made me that much angrier. No wonder Johnny had been unable to resist her. I doubted many men could.

I listened in to Astrid’s conversation on the phone for several minutes, surprised anyone could find something as simple as the layout of a living room to be such a captivating topic for discussion. Then Astrid had a meeting with some of her staff members about various projects they were working on. Afterward she met with a client to discuss her plans to redo his guest house. After half-an-hour of spying on Astrid, I was bored out of my mind.

That was when Astrid advised her secretary that she would be leaving the office early and darted out the front door. The speed with which she left reignited my suspicions and I followed after her.

As it turned out, she didn’t go too far. Astrid walked a few blocks down the street to a popular five-star hotel where she went into the lobby and made her way to a posh restaurant. She asked the restaurant’s hostess for a seat at the bar, sat down, and ordered a glass of wine. Then she sat there for several minutes sipping her wine and reading articles about fashion design on her phone. Maybe Astrid’s big secret was that she was an alcoholic.

Within a few minutes, other patrons began trickling into the restaurant and made their way to empty seats at the bar. It looked like local office workers were indulging in happy hour.

A fair-haired man with streaks of gray at his temples dressed in a finely tailored Italian suit stepped through me on the way to the bar. He abruptly stopped and looked around with a perplexed expression on his face. No doubt walking through me had made him feel funny.

The man in the fancy suit was accompanied by another man with silver hair slicked back, who was wearing a shabbier suit made of polyester.

“What’s a matter, Dan?” the silver-haired man asked. “You look like someone walked over your grave.”

“Nothing, Bill,” Dan said. “Uh, I just had this weird feeling like I walked through a spider web or something. Come on, let’s go grab some seats.”

Dan and Bill sat down near Astrid. Both men glanced at her.

Dan leaned over to Bill and said, “Take a look at the blonde in the blue dress. What a piece of ass.”

Bill chuckled.

“Damn right,” Bill said. “What I wouldn’t give to take her home.”

Dan slipped a wedding ring off his finger and dropped it in one of his pockets.

“Wishing is a poor man’s disease,” Dan said. “When you make the kind of money you and I make, you can afford to make dreams into reality.”

Bill shook his head.

“Don’t do it, Dan,” Bill said. “Didn’t you say Margery was already suspicious about that trip you took to Chicago last month? You want to give her another reason to get on your case?”

Dan scoffed.

“Margery knows how this works,” Dan said. “She’s the trophy wife. She gets to sit at home in a nice big house with nannies to take care of the kids, a luxury sports car in the garage, and with a prenup protecting my interests. She makes me look good, but she knows she doesn’t have a leash on me. I get to sow my oats as long as I keep it on the down low.”

“Okay, it’s your funeral, buddy,” Bill said.

“Live a little,” Dan said with a smirk as he got up from his seat and walked toward Astrid.

Bill shook his head again and waved to get the bartender’s attention.

I looked on with disgust as Dan sauntered over to Astrid, leaned on the counter beside her, and said, “Hi there. I couldn’t help but notice your glass is almost empty. I insist that you allow me to get that refilled for you before you run dry and we have a real crisis on our hands.”

Astrid smiled warmly at Dan and said, “My hero. You just saved me from the risk of staying sober and dying of boredom.”

“You’re welcome,” Dan said.

Dan called over to the bartender and ordered two glasses of the most expensive wine the bar kept in stock.

As I watched Dan try to seduce Astrid, I found it increasingly difficult to contain my rage. All my worst assumptions about Astrid were true. She was a sex-crazed skank. Only a few days before, she had taken advantage of my ex-boyfriend, and now here she was preying on a married scumbag. But then I recognized that it wasn’t fair to blame the chum for the shark frenzy. Astrid may have been a slut, but she wouldn’t have been able to satiate her supercharged libido without an endless supply of stupid, horny men chasing after her.
After an obscenely short amount of time, Astrid and Dan got up from their seats and made their way out to the lobby, with Dan shooting Bill a wink as he left the bar. I followed them out to the reception desk where they asked for a room. Then I reluctantly followed them up the elevator and watched them practically sprint to the hotel room they had gotten. I had reservations about watching Astrid and Dan in flagrante delicto, but if sleeping with Astrid had somehow caused Jane’s gender swap, I had to force myself to watch in case an explanation revealed itself.

And I did force myself to watch. For about five minutes. After that, my stomach began to turn and I was close to throwing up. I went out into the hallway and listened to the sounds of their carnal symphony. Listening to Astrid and Dan make love was no picnic, but it wasn’t as excruciating as watching them.

Eventually, the sounds of sex subsided and I heard them talking. Then the door opened. I half expected to see a female version of Dan step out and run down the hall screaming. But it was just regular Dan, looking smug in his now-wrinkled Italian suit.

“You were great, babe,” Dan said. “I’ll give you a call and we’ll get together again soon.”

“Can’t wait,” Astrid said as she stood beside the bed adjusting her dress.

Dan closed the door and walked toward the elevator. I looked at the closed door. Then I looked back at Dan. Should I follow Dan or stay with Astrid?

I decided it made more sense to follow Dan. If something happened to him, I could witness it, and I knew where to find Astrid if I had to follow up on her.

I followed Dan as he made his way back down to the bar where his friend Bill was nursing a glass of bourbon.

“What did I tell you?” Dan said. “Make dreams into reality.”

Bill guffawed.

“You’re a scumbag, Dan, but you sure know how to work women,” Bill said. “How was she?”

Dan ordered a glass of bourbon for himself and sat down next to Bill.

“She was the best pussy I ever had,” Dan said. “Yeah, she had an amazing body, but that wasn’t even the best part. She had skills in bed like I never imagined.”

I watched Dan brag about his infidelity for nearly an hour. I began to hope something would happen to him. But he was fine. Obviously I was barking up the wrong tree. There was nothing mystical going on with Astrid.

As I began to walk away, I heard the sound of glass shattering.

I turned back to see Dan groaning and clutching at his chest. Shards of glass lay at his feet in a pool of spilled bourbon.

“Fuck!” he cried as he bent over. “My chest!”

“Shit!” Bill exclaimed. “He’s having a heart attack! Call an ambulance!”

Bill grabbed Dan and tried to keep him from keeling over while the bartender got on the phone and called for help. Several of the restaurant’s patrons hurriedly left while others tried to offer help, and some merely watched the scene play out.

I watched as Dan lost consciousness. Paramedics charged into the restaurant only minutes later. They cleared the room of customers and then tried to resuscitate Dan with a defibrillator. I overheard them mention that there was no sign of electrical activity coming from his heart. The paramedics agreed to take him to a nearby hospital although they acknowledged that there was nothing they could do to bring Dan back. I watched as they hauled him away.

I was left standing alone in the restaurant wondering if I had just witnessed a murder.

Chapter Twelve

“I think we may be dealing with a witch who has a problem with men,” Erica said.

I had gone to Erica’s shop after witnessing the outcome of Astrid’s tryst with the unfortunate adulterer Dan and had told her what had happened. Neither of us thought the heart attack was a mere coincidence.

“And what?” I said. “She seduces men to test their loyalty to their women and then curses them? Jane she transforms into a woman and this poor bastard at the hotel bar she kills? Not a lot of logical consistency there.”

“I admit, it doesn’t sound reasonable, but don’t forget that the night you found your ex cheating on you, you were ready to cast a spell to make him spontaneously combust,” Erica said. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

“Granted, but if she just cast a transformation spell on Jane, why wasn’t I able to reverse it?”

“Like I said before, maybe Jane is under too much stress to permit the spell to work properly,” Erica said. “The one thing I can’t explain is Jane’s aura and what the cards keep telling me. Jane is no longer human. Whatever Astrid did to her, it seems to go beyond a simple gender swap. I’d reach out to Chastity for advice, but we’re not on the best terms right now. She blames you for her recent falling out with her niece, and because I introduced you to Chastity, I’m guilty by association.”

Summer had chosen to move away from Chastity after accepting her boyfriend’s proposal. That had nothing to do with me, even if I had encouraged Summer to forge her own path separate from Chastity. I didn’t care if Summer’s choice had upset Chastity, I only felt bad that Erica had lost a steady customer.

“It would be nice to be able to consult with a witch about this,” I said. “Well, I can always ask Summer. She may not be a witch, but she watched Chastity practice magic for years. She may know something that can help figure this whole thing out with Jane.”

“It’s worth a try,” Erica said. “And here’s that text you were asking about. You love reading so much, go ahead and pour through that. Maybe you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.”

Erica placed a thick leather bound book on the counter beside the cash register. Gleaming in gold text on the black leather were the words On the History of the Blinding of the Prophet Tiresias and the Legacy Thereof. The book was the definitive work on everything known about gender swapping, drafted by a coven of German witches in the nineteenth century.

“Wow, you’re good,” I said. “I can’t believe you were able to get your hands on a copy.”

“I had to call in a favor from a wood nymph who supplies me with fairy dust, but I found it,” Erica said.

“How much is this going to set me back?” I asked.

“Eight hundred and fifty dollars,” Erica said.

I winced.

“Yikes,” I said as I paid her. “Between law school and your magic shop, I’m going to end up filing for bankruptcy.”

“I’m sure it’s worth every penny,” Erica said.

“I’ll see you later,” I said. “I have to get home. I have a study date with a classmate.”

Erica snorted.

“Judging by that spark in your aura, the only thing you’re planning to study is your classmate,” Erica said. “I can’t believe that with everything you’re going through you’re thinking of sleeping with someone you just met.”

I giggled.

“Girl, I swear you read minds, not auras,” I said with a smile. “What can I say, Erica? Maybe I was too quick to abandon my old habits. Indulging in lust is looking more appealing than pursuing love these days.”

I left Erica’s magic shop and drove home. I had less than an hour before Dylan arrived. I parked in the garage under the townhouse and went up the stairs into the kitchen.

“Someone’s feeling frisky tonight,” I heard someone in the living room say.

I walked into the living room and saw a petite Asian girl with long brown hair streaked with gold highlights crouched on the floor with a pudgy orange tabby cradled in her arms, and two more cats bouncing around on the floor around her. She was dressed in black tights, a long-sleeved gray t-shirt, and a pair of white tennis shoes.

My roommate Emma stood about five-foot-three and was super cute. Before my transformation into a girl, she had been the shortest roommate living in the townhouse. As a man, I had thought she would make a perfect candidate for what is referred to in the adult film industry as a “spinner,” a woman with a physique so slight that a man can easily spin her around during sex to maneuver her into different positions. That was ironic considering that, because I was now smaller than Emma, I was better qualified to serve as a spinner than she was. Emma was no porn star, of course, she worked as a medical assistant at a nearby clinic.

“Oh, hey Emma,” I said. “I thought you were talking to me.”

“Is that right?” Emma said. “Why? Are you feeling frisky, Kelly?”

“That’s a personal question,” I said. “Buster sure is getting chubby.”

“No, he’s getting cuddly. Cats are supposed to look cuddly. It makes them more fun to snuggle with.”

“Did you just finish feeding them?” I asked. “They look happier than usual.”

Emma’s cats were almost as cute as she was, but they were complete assholes when they were hungry, biting and scratching with irritation. Give them some treats and they instantly became your best friends.

“Sure did. The local animal shelter is holding a midnight neuter-a-thon, and I’m going to volunteer. I wanted to feed these little guys before I head out.”

“What’s a neuter-a-thon?”

“Oh, well, they’re performing free neutering and spaying services for anyone who brings in their kitties and doggies tonight,” Emma explained. “You know how important it is to limit the number of strays. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to get these little guys to wear condoms.”

“Yeah, all the guys I knew in college were the same way,” I said. “What exactly are you going to be doing? Like, gathering all the loose gonads off the floor?”

“No, nothing like that. I’ll just be registering the critters as the owners bring them in. Wanna come with?”

I shook my head.

“As much as I would like to see a bunch of males lose their manhood, I have my own tomcat coming over tonight, and this kitty is indeed feeling frisky,” I said.

“Oh, Kelly, I know you’re upset about Johnny, but hopping into bed with another guy right away isn’t a good idea,” Emma said. “When I was in high school, I caught my boyfriend kissing another girl at my friend’s birthday party. To get back at him, I made out with my chemistry lab partner. That guy went around telling everyone he copped a feel on my boobs, and the whole rest of the semester all the other girls at school called me a slut. The funny thing is, I found out my ex-boyfriend came out as gay last year. Crazy, right?”

“Emma, were you trying to make a point?”

Emma raised both her eyebrows.
“I think so.”

“Well, I must have missed it,” I said. “Listen, since you’re going out tonight, do you mind if Jane hangs out in your room? I’m expecting my friend and I to need some privacy tonight.”

Emma dropped Buster on the floor and stood up.

“Okay, but only if you promise to give my babies their late night treats while I’m out,” Emma said.

“I sort of have to,” I said. “If Buster, Casper, and Pixie don’t get their snacks, they run amok.”

“That reminds me, don’t let Becky throw her shoes at them. She can be a terrible aunt. She doesn’t understand that kittens gonna kitten.”

“Uh, sure.”

“Cool, thanks,” Emma said. “Goodbye babies, be good for Aunt Kelly.”

With that, Emma bounced off downstairs to the garage.

I reached down to pet Buster, who purred approvingly before suddenly dashing away to hide behind the coffee table. For all their attitude, I couldn’t even say Emma’s pets were my most temperamental roommates.

I went upstairs to my bedroom. When I opened the door, I was surprised to find Jane sitting in my chair wearing a black cotton-blend miniskirt and a rose-colored halter top that exposed her midriff. Jane hadn’t yet picked up typical female mannerisms and sat in the chair like a man, with her knees spread apart, so I could see she still wasn’t wearing any underwear. She was watching something on television and ignored me as I walked in.

“Why are you dressed like that?” I asked.

“Uh, I went out for a walk earlier,” Jane said absentmindedly. “It was warm out, so I changed. This felt more comfortable. You said I could borrow your clothes.”

“I see.”

I glanced at the television to find out what Jane was watching so intently. On the screen, a group of muscular men wearing nothing but briefs were dancing on a stage in front of a crowd of cheering women.

“Oh my god,” I said. “You’re watching Beefcake Blues?”

Beefcake Blues was a dramatic comedy about a teenage boy who runs away from home and ends up in Las Vegas where he finds work at a male strip club. Most of the film revolves around his efforts to overcome his drug habit and make a relationship work with a waitress he meets. The movie was very popular with women because of all the strip club scenes with the muscle-bound hunks dancing naked. I was embarrassed to say I had watched Beefcake Blues multiple times.

Jane turned away from the television, looked at me, and muttered, “Uh, I was channel surfing and it was on.”

I turned off the television and said, “Right. Well, I think I may be onto something with Astrid. I’ll spare you the details, but I think she may have transformed you as a sort of punishment for cheating on me. Don’t ask me how or why, just take my word for it. I’m going to do some research and try to figure out exactly what she did to you.”

“That’s great,” Jane said.

Jane stared past me at the wall with a blank expression on her face.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “I mean, aside from your whole sex change thing. You’re spacing out on me.”

Jane looked at me and said, “Something is different. I’m having unusual…urges.”

“Jane, please skip the cryptic bullshit and tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “I’m dealing with way too much as it is.”

“I’m…attracted to men,” Jane said.

I gazed at Jane for several moments. Then I laughed.

“Welcome to the club, girl,” I said. “I know, I know. You’re not gay. It doesn’t feel right. I went through the same thing at first. You get used to it. You have no choice in the matter. You’re in a woman’s body. You’re biologically programmed to find men attractive. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

“That’s exactly the problem,” Jane whined. “For the first couple of days, I tried to suppress my feelings. Now I can’t even do that. I went for a walk around the neighborhood today. I noticed all these young, good-looking guys everywhere. All I could think about whenever I looked at them was how much I wanted them. These fantasies kept springing up in my head. I couldn’t fight it. After a while, I began to enjoy the feeling I got from checking out guys. I came back here and tried to watch television to take my mind off the urges. But there’s hot guys on every channel. And I can’t stop myself from wanting them. I feel like a cat in heat.”

“Jane, I know these feelings may seem strange, but that’s only because they’re new,” I said. “They’re perfectly natural. It’s the way all women feel. These feelings are no different from the feelings of attraction you had as a man.”

“Really?” Jane said. “This is how you feel all the time?”

I shrugged.

“Well, maybe not all the time, but often,” I said. “Like right now, for instance, I do. Which is why I’m going to have to ask you to stay in Emma’s room tonight.”

I explained that Dylan was coming over and I wanted some privacy later. Jane glowered.

“Seriously?” she said. “We’ve been broken up for a few days and you’re already hooking up with random guys?”

“Stop right there,” I warned. “You don’t get to question me about who I’m spending time with. You’re on thin ice, Jane. I’m wondering why I’m going so out of my way for you when I should be relishing your misery. It also sounds like you have a pretty good idea now that a girl has needs. You may be indulging those needs sooner than you think, from what you just said. You and I are over and, anyway, you’re obviously no longer equipped to meet my needs. You were the first real relationship I had in years. I was loyal, devoted, loving, and how did you repay that? I’m thinking relationships are overrated and it’s time to move on. Deal with it or get out and find a way to get your penis back on your own.”

Jane stood up, threw her arms in the air, and stamped one of her feet on the floor.

“I’m in hell!” Jane growled. “I died and went to hell! That’s the only explanation for this nightmare! Fine! Go spread your legs for some random asshole!”

With that, Jane stormed out of the room and down the hallway toward Emma’s bedroom. I heard a door slam shut.

I was tempted to throw Jane out on the street right then and there. I was putting my life on hold to help her out after she had stabbed me in the back, and she was acting like a world class bitch. If it wasn’t for that haunting feeling that I may have been responsible for her transformation in some way, I really would have tossed her out on her ass. Well, that and the fact that the police were actively looking for her male alter ego.

I received a text on my phone. It was from Dylan.

“I’ll be at your place in fifteen minutes,” he wrote.

“I’ll be waiting,” I wrote back with a winking face emoji to add emphasis.

I closed the door to my bedroom and took off the gingham dress I had been wearing all day, then removed the cotton panties and bra I had on underneath. Naked, I walked over to my dresser and pulled out a violet thong with black lace trimming and a matching push-up bra. After slipping into the underwear, I walked over to my closet and picked out a scandalously short denim skirt and a white camisole crop top with spaghetti straps and a row of buttons that went halfway down the front. I put on the skirt and camisole, leaving the buttons on the latter unfastened to expose an obscene amount of cleavage. Then I grabbed a pair of bright red sandals with four-inch stiletto heels, ankle straps, and cute little bows over the toe straps.

I checked myself out in the mirror. Dressed like this, I wasn’t just dropping a hint for Dylan, I was giving him an engraved invitation and rolling out the red carpet. Someone was getting lucky tonight.

Dylan texted me that he was at the front door. I went downstairs and opened the door.

Dylan stood outside dressed casually in jeans and a flannel shirt, with several textbooks and note pads tucked under one arm. The look on his face when he laid his eyes on me told me that I looked as hot as I felt.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” I said with a smile as I led him to the living room where my law school textbooks, study guides, and notes were laid out.

“Humble nothing,” he said. “You’ve got a nice place. I live in a rundown studio in Ashford, and what I’m paying for rent is a crime. This place must cost a fortune.”

“Thanks, but I share the insane rent with three roommates. It’s the only way I could ever afford a place like this. Have a seat and make yourself comfortable. I was just about to grab a beer from the fridge. Do you want me to get you one, too?”

“I’d love one, thanks.”

I brought over a couple of beers and Dylan and I sat down next to each other on the couch. We went over our notes for the classes we had together, clarifying any points of confusion. Then we went over the assigned reading for the next few classes.

Nearly an hour into our study session, Dylan said, “You know, the tough part of law school is pulling it all together. All the different rules for all the different subjects are hard to remember, yeah, but figuring out how they all work with each other is way harder.”

I nodded.

“Yes, but understanding the overall framework helps with memorizing the black letter law,” I said. “The subjects we’re studying this semester all fit together in a simple, elegant framework. Torts and contracts provide the causes of action that give rise to lawsuits, property is the object over which those lawsuits are argued, and civil procedure provides the rules for arguing cases. It helps if you analogize the concepts to football. Torts and contracts are the two different plays you can run, passes or rushes. The ball is property, the things your fighting to get possession over. And civil procedure is just the game rules. Once you put the different concepts in perspective, it becomes much easier to understand the rationale for the legal rules and principles, sort of like the better you understand the fundamentals in football the better you can plan your game strategy.”

Dylan laughed.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said. “Sorry. It’s just…you’re so far from my first impression of you.”

“Oh,” I said as I leaned closer to him. “What was your first impression of me?”

“Uh, well, most girls who take an interest in how they look and who look like you aren’t…as nerdy as you are,” Dylan said.

I giggled and gave Dylan a playful shove as I said, “You thought I was an airhead, didn’t you?”

Dylan smiled back at me and shook his head.

“No, not at all,” Dylan said. “From the way you handle yourself in class when the professors pick on you, it’s obvious you’re smart. That’s not it. I just meant that beautiful girls aren’t usually as into studying stuff like this the way you are. And some of the things you’re into, like football and those science fiction stories you were talking to me about the other day. You’re like a really chill dude you can share a beer with, but in the body of a girl.”

“Is that a bad thing?” I asked as I took a sip from my beer.

“No, it’s great,” he said. “I love hanging out with you. I just wish it wasn’t to study something this hard.”

“Come on, it’s not that hard,” I said. “You’re just stressed. You need to take your mind off this stuff for a minute and relax. Scoot over here. I’ll massage your shoulders to…”

Suddenly a familiar voice said, “Hi, Kelly. Who’s your friend?”

I turned to see Jane standing behind the couch, her hands on her hips, an accusatory expression on her face. Dylan stared at Jane, too, and the look on his face when his eyes fell on her made the look he gave me at the front door seem restrained by comparison. He was clearly enthralled by the sight of the petite Latina in the miniskirt and halter top who stared back at him with suspicion and ire. I’ll admit it, I felt a little jealous.

“Uh, hey Jane,” I said, my unease betrayed by my tone of voice. “This is my friend Dylan from school. Dylan this is, uh, my friend Jane. She’s visiting from out of town.”

“Nice to meet you,” Dylan said.

“I’m sure,” Jane said icily.

“What are you doing here, Jane?” I said. “I thought you were, uh, taking a nap upstairs. Where you should be.”

“I heard some noises downstairs and I came to see if you were okay,” Jane said. “It sounded like someone was bothering you. Dylan, were you bothering my…my Kelly, my friend Kelly?”

Dylan grinned stupidly.

“What?” he said. “No. We were just studying. I’m sorry if we woke you up. Hey, we were just taking a break. Why don’t you sit down? I’ll grab you a beer. I moved here for school a few weeks back, I don’t know anyone from the area, and I’m always up for meeting new people.”

Before I could protest, Jane said, “Sure.”

She took a seat between me and Dylan, shoving me aside with surprising force.

Dylan got up and raced to the kitchen to grab Jane a drink, blatantly looking back over his shoulder to take another opportunity to gaze at Jane. I rolled my eyes. Men were so disgusting. For a moment, I thought it might be better to become one again just so I could avoid having anything to do with them. That thought made for a poignant paradox.

While Dylan was in the kitchen, I whispered angrily to Jane, “Get out of here, asshole. You’re fucking this up for me.”

“My god, Kelly, if I had waited one more minute before saying something he’d be on top of you right now,” Jane said. “You joked about being easy before meeting me, but I had no idea how much of a whore you really were.”

My jaw dropped.

I was about to throw Jane over my shoulder and literally toss her out of my home when Dylan walked back into the room, handed Jane a beer, and said, “Here you go. So where are you from, Jane?”

Before Jane could answer, there was a loud knock at the door.

“Well?” Jane said to me with a scowl. “Aren’t you going to answer that?”

I glanced at Dylan and said sweetly, “I’ll be back in a moment.”

“Take your time,” Dylan said without taking his eyes off Jane.

I went to the front door and opened it. Standing in front of me was the man in the charcoal suit I had seen with the police at Jane’s place the day before.

“Good evening,” the man said. “I’m Detective Andrew Miller. Are you Kelly Rodriguez?”

Chapter Thirteen

“Yes,” I said. “What can I do for you, Detective Miller?”

“Are you familiar with an individual named Jonathan Lopez?”

It took me a moment to realize he was referring to Jane’s male alter ego.

“Johnny is my ex-boyfriend,” I said. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m not sure,” Miller said. “His family filed a missing persons report, and I’m checking in with his friends to see if they’ve heard from him. Would it be possible for me to come in for a moment to talk?”

Miller did not have a clear line-of-sight into the living room, a wall obstructed his view, but we could both hear Jane and Dylan talking. For a moment, I worried about what they were talking about, but only for a moment. I had more pressing concerns just then.

I knew my rights, and Miller had no right to barge into my home without a warrant or probable cause that a crime had been committed. I could have told him to leave, but that might have raised his suspicions. I also wanted to talk to him to get an idea about what the police knew, fully aware they might have seen me walking around with Jane. I had to talk to him, but not in the townhouse, not where he could see Jane.

“I’m sorry, but I have guests over just now,” I said. “Would it be asking too much if I could excuse myself and meet with you in a few minutes at the coffee shop down the street? I don’t want to upset my guests.”

Miller peeked over my shoulder, then nodded.

“You know, I could actually use a cup of coffee,” he said. “I’ll go down there and grab one while I wait for you. Please don’t keep me waiting, Miss Rodriguez.”

“I’ll be there in two shakes of a lamb’s tail,” I said as Miller turned around and strolled away.

I closed the door and minced back into the living room.

“Jane, could you please join me in the kitchen?” I said. “Your sister just dropped by with an urgent message for you.”

Jane’s eyes widened.

“My sister?”

“Yes,” I said. “You know, about that thing you talked to her about the other day.”

Jane sprang up off the couch and followed me into the kitchen.

I looked at Dylan and said, “Sorry, girl talk. We’ll just be a second.”

“Sure thing,” Dylan said with a dumb grin as his eyes trailed after Jane.

“My sister came here?” Jane asked in an agitated whisper when we were alone in the kitchen.

“No,” I whispered back to her. “It was that detective we saw at your place yesterday. He wants to talk to me about your disappearance. I told him to wait for me at the coffee shop. I’m going to get rid of Dylan and I need you to hide upstairs.”

Jane stayed quiet for a moment. She glanced toward the living room.

Then she said, “You go deal with the detective. I’ll take care of Dylan.”

I grunted in annoyance.

“We don’t have time for this,” I said. “Whatever issues you have with Dylan, they can wait until after we avoid getting arrested for kidnapping or whatever.”

Jane marched out of the kitchen and into the living room. I tried to pull her back, but she easily pulled away from me.

In the living room, Jane said to Dylan, “Kelly needs to give my sister a ride to my aunt’s house to help her with something. They’ll only be gone for a little while. I can wait here and keep you company until they get back. It won’t take long.”

Dylan said, “Sounds great. That should give the two of us a chance to get to know each other better.”

“That’s right,” Jane said.

I glared at Jane.

Then I leaned in and whispered to her, “You’re going to regret this.”

I turned to Dylan and said, “Okay, well, I’m going to go ahead and take care of this. Then I’ll come back, and I’m sure the three of us will have a lot to talk about.”

“See you in a bit,” he said as I walked toward the door.

As I left the living room, I could see Dylan move closer to Jane on the couch. She shot me a nasty look. My mind flooded with horrifying possibilities, but Miller was waiting for me. I walked out the front door.

As I trudged the short distance from the townhouse to the coffee shop on the corner, I was racked with anxiety. What did the police know? What did they think had happened? Was I a suspect? What was Jane saying to Dylan? Why did my life have to be so complicated?

I walked into the coffee shop and saw Miller seated at a table by the window drinking a cup of coffee. He waved to me and said, “I was about to give up on you, Miss Rodriguez.”

“I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” I said as I sat down across the table from him. “You’ll have to admit, it’s a bit late in the evening for something like this. Can you tell me what’s happened to Johnny?”

“Like I said, his family has filed a missing persons report,” Miller said. “I’m trying to figure out what happened. Can you tell me the last time you saw Mister Lopez?”

“I went to his condo a few days ago,” I said. “I found him with another woman. I broke up with him and left.”

Miller took out a notepad and began scribbling away with a pen.

“Did you know the other woman?”

“No. That was my first time seeing her.”

“Can you describe what she looked like?”

I nodded.

“She was white, tall, blonde.”

“Anything else?”

I shook my head.

“I wasn’t there for long. I didn’t get a good look at her.”

“And that was the last time you saw Mister Lopez?”

“Yes.”

“Have you gone back to his home since then?”

“Yes. I went there yesterday.”

“Why?”

“I left some things there. I wanted to get them back.”

“What sort of things?”

“Clothes, mostly. I stayed with him a lot. I may have left other things.”

“Were you able to get inside his condo? Do you have a key?”

“I don’t have a key. Someone was there. A girl who said she was looking for Johnny. She said she was a friend of his, but I thought she was another girl he was seeing. I got upset and I left. That girl followed me out, kept asking me where I could find Johnny. I drove home.”

“What did this girl look like?”

“She was a Latina. Short. Shorter than me. Very thin. She looked like a teenager.”

“And you never saw her before?”

“No.”

“Have you seen her since yesterday?”

“No.”

“Did you get your things out of his home?”

“No. I was too upset after finding that girl there.”

“I don’t mean to pry, but can you tell me a little more about the night you found your ex-boyfriend with the blonde woman?” Miller asked.

“There’s not much to tell,” I said. “I got there and found him with her. I told him it was over and left.”

Miller’s questioning went on for a long time. Far longer than I had expected.

Finally, he said, “I’ve only got one last question for you. Do you know of anyone who may have wanted to harm Mister Lopez?”

I snorted.

“Me, when I found him with that blonde girl,” I said. “I was upset that night. He really hurt me. But, no, Johnny didn’t have any enemies. He got along well with everyone. Then again, after finding him with the blonde, I guess I didn’t know him as well as I thought.”

“Thank you for your time, Miss Rodriguez,” he said. “I know it’s late and I appreciate your help. If you can think of anything else, here’s my card. My cell number and email address are on there. And I have the number you gave me. Have a good night.”

I took the card from him and said, “Wait. Do you think something happened to Johnny? Do you think that blonde woman…”

“Like I said, his family reported him missing, and I’m just asking questions trying to figure out where he is,” Miller said. “Thank you again for your time.”

Miller walked out of the coffee shop and I was left wondering what he planned to do. But I had to get back home and find out what damage Jane had done in my absence.

As I scurried home, I wanted so badly to be rid of Jane. My life would get a whole lot less complicated if I could turn her back into a man and forget about her. Unfortunately, with the police snooping around, I didn’t have the option of simply walking away from Jane. It was only natural for the police to suspect the involvement of the jealous ex-girlfriend in Johnny’s disappearance. If their investigation led them to a stark raving mad young woman who claimed to be Johnny mystically transformed into a woman, I doubt they would close the investigation as unsolved. My guess is they would come up with some theory involving a grizzly murder in the heat of passion. I knew from hearing about true crime stories that it was possible, albeit unwise, to prosecute someone for murder even in the absence of the victim’s body. I had no interest in taking part in a murder trial.

I entered the townhouse and darted to the living room. There was no one there. It was empty except for the textbooks and notepads strewn over the furniture. What had Jane done with Dylan? Unpleasant scenarios raced through my mind. Had Jane threatened him to stay away from me? Was I going to show up to class tomorrow with Dylan thinking I had a jealous lesbian ex-lover? Had she told him I was a slut with a lot of different partners? Had she told him I used to be a man? The possibilities were unsettling.

I made my way upstairs. My bedroom door was closed. I hurled it open, eager to settle accounts with Jane.

A lot of strange things had happened to me over the last few months. My capacity to be shocked was slowly ebbing. Johnny’s transformation into Jane hadn’t rattled me as much as it should have. Even witnessing Astrid possibly murder a man hadn’t unnerved me the way I would have expected. Regardless, I maintained the ability to be shocked.

And I was shocked when I found Jane and Dylan lying naked together in my bed.

“What the fuck are you doing?!?!?!” I screamed.

Jane turned and glanced at me with an expression of indifference. She was snuggled up against Dylan, her hand gently caressing his chest. She continued to stroke his chest with a smug, satisfied look on her face.

Dylan, on the other hand, blanched. A look of stunned horror spread across his face.

“Wait a minute, Kelly, this isn’t my fault, I wasn’t…” Dylan blurted out.

“Get out!” I shouted. “Get out!”

Dylan jumped out of the bed, grabbed his clothes off the ground, and tried to say, “Kelly, please, you don’t understand, I didn’t…”

“Get out!” I said as I swung my fist into his jaw. “Get out!”

That blow knocked Dylan back a step or two. Dazed, he stumbled forward, looked at me, looked at Jane, then ran out of the room naked with his clothes in hand.

With Dylan disposed of, I turned my attention to Jane.

“You, too, bitch!” I cried. “Get out of my home! The cops are out there looking for you! They’re welcome to find you! Man, woman, whatever, you’ve lost your fucking mind! I’m done with you!”

Jane yawned and nonchalantly rose from the bed. She picked up the miniskirt she had been wearing off the ground and slipped it on, then found the halter top and put that on, too.

As Jane slipped her small feet into a pair of my sandals, she said without bothering to look at me, “I’m fed up with you, Kelly. I know you’re behind all this. You transformed me into a woman, and you forced me to go through that agonizing transformation spell just to toy with me. Now you’re holding me here to keep torturing me. Fuck you. I’m done with your shit, you miserable bitch.”

That was the proverbial straw that broke this camel’s back. I was able to take Jane down with one punch back when she was a man. In her new, daintier physique, I could break her in half.

My fist flew toward Jane’s face. A bolt of excruciating pain shot out of my hand and up my wrist as I made contact. Jane stood there without so much as wincing.

“Ow!” I exclaimed as I nursed my hand.

Jane swung her arm against my chest to push me away. I flew across the room and out the open door into the hallway. I landed on my butt with a hard thud.

I had been a running back on my high school football team. Or rather, David had been a running back in high school. Kelly had been cheer captain in high school. Regardless, no defensive lineman or linebacker had ever hit me with as much force as Jane had just exerted on me.

“Get away from me,” Jane said. “I’m getting out of here.”

She stormed out of my room and down the stairs. I heard the front door slam shut.

Ashley and Becky ran down the stairs from their rooms on the third floor to the hallway outside my bedroom, Becky wearing only her panties and a camisole and Ashley wrapped up in a bathrobe.

“What was that all about?” Becky asked.

“Are you all right, Kelly?” Ashley asked as she helped me up off the floor.

“I don’t know,” I said.

And I really didn’t. I had been thrown yet another curveball.

Chapter Fourteen

“You get enough sleep last night, girl?” Nadine asked.

I sat with Nadine and Claudia at a table in the university’s student commons, a large building that housed the campus bookstore and several eateries along with a massive dining area. I wore pink canvas shoes, low-rise jeans, and a gray t-shirt emblazoned with the image of a defiant anthropomorphic possum covered in a tire tread mark under the caption “Roadkill Never Says Die.” My hair was done up in a pair of sloppy, unbraided half up pigtails I had haphazardly put together before leaving home. I hadn’t bothered to put on makeup when I got up that morning and I wore sunglasses to try and cover up the puffy eyes that had resulted from a lack of sleep. They didn’t seem to be fooling anyone.

“No, honey, I did not,” I said irritably. “I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep in a long while.”

Our contracts class was scheduled to start in a few minutes and we had grabbed some coffee and a quick breakfast. Nadine was eating a cheese danish while Claudia was having oatmeal. I hadn’t been hungry and had only an aluminum can filled with an energy drink sitting in front of me on the table.

“Does that mean you and Dylan…” Claudia began.

“We did not,” I interrupted her. “Things didn’t go exactly as planned.”

“Don’t worry, Kelly, there are other fish in the sea,” Nadine said.

After Jane had left the townhouse the night before, I had immediately gone to bed, completely exhausted from one of the strangest days of my life. Unfortunately, my mind was too preoccupied with problems for sleep to find me easily, and I had barely slept at all.

My head was full of cobwebs, and I found myself wondering what had compelled Jane to sleep with Dylan. First she was jealous of the guy because I wanted to hook up with him, then she jumped into bed with him at the first opportunity. Was she that desperate to get back at me?

I couldn’t blame Jane for thinking I was behind her transformation. Maybe I was. Whether or not her sex change had resulted from anything I had done, I certainly hadn’t done anything to get her back to normal, other than subject her to a painful and unsuccessful transformation spell. And it had been thoughtless of me to invite Dylan over while Jane was staying at my place. How could she have interpreted that as anything but an insult?

Yes, I may have played a role in what had transpired the night before. I could recognize that. But I wasn’t in the wrong. I was right to be upset with both Jane and Dylan. Jane for lashing out at me and Dylan for being a horny scum bag.

Now I had a new set of problems. I didn’t know where Jane was and the police were looking for her. I also had to contend with going to class with Dylan, who had made a fool of me. And I was still no closer to uncovering the mystery behind Jane’s gender swap. Things just kept getting more and more difficult.

“Fuck fishing,” I said to Nadine. “Maybe I should find another hobby.”

“You could come to my bible study group,” Claudia said. “Lost souls often go there looking for guidance.”

“I admit celibacy is starting to look pretty good about now,” I said.

After a few minutes, we got up from the table and made our way to class.

As we walked to class, Claudia and Nadine discussed the latest episode of Starlets and the plot twist that Holly had planted the cocaine in Cherry’s car that the police had found. Ordinarily I would have been engrossed in that conversation and given my opinion on how Cherry should respond. But I was too preoccupied by the dread I felt at the prospect of seeing Dylan in class. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe he would be so filled with humiliation over the previous night that he would keel over from shame and drop dead.

I also reflected on the eerie similarities between my experience with Astrid when I found her sleeping with Johnny and my experience with Jane when I found her sleeping with Dylan. I had been able to knock down both Johnny and Dylan with a single punch, yet I had nearly broken my hand when I had punched Astrid and then later Jane. I didn’t need Erica to read cards to know that Astrid and Jane weren’t ordinary human women. My sore hand was all the proof I needed of that. No mere mortal could take a hit like that.

As we approached our classroom, I heard Dylan call out from behind me, “Hey, Kelly, hold up a minute!”

I turned and saw Dylan sprinting down the hallway after me.

I looked at Nadine and Claudia and said, “You guys go on ahead, I’ll be right in.”

Nadine and Claudia exchanged knowing glances before turning around and walking into the classroom.

Dylan came up to me with a dour expression on his face.

“Kelly, I know you’re pissed off but please hear me out,” Dylan pleaded.

“Don’t even bother,” I said. “You have no idea what you stepped into. I have too much going on to waste my time with another horny creep looking for a quick lay. Just forget it and move on to the next girl. Trust me, I’ll be moving on without a second thought.”

That was harsh, and admittedly hypocritical. I had intended to use Dylan as a whet stone on which to sharpen the blade that was my raging libido, so I could hardly be upset that he had intended to use me for sex. That was all I had intended to use him for. Regardless, he had embarrassed me by sleeping with Jane instead, and I was angry with him. Plus, I was irritated that my physical needs remained unsatisfied.

“It’s not like that, Kelly,” Dylan insisted. “I really like you. I wasn’t looking for a one night stand. I wanted to get to know you better. I can’t explain what happened. Maybe I had more beers than I thought. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was like I was on autopilot. I’ve never had anything come over me like that. As soon as I saw Jane, my head got all, I don’t know, hazy. It was like I was high. Whatever it was, it wore off after you found us. Look, I understand that you don’t want to have anything to do with me. What I did was unforgivable, but I just need you to know that…I don’t know, I’m not that kind of guy. Something just came over me. I can’t explain it.”

Again, I was unsettled by how Dylan’s explanation for his behavior paralleled the explanation Jane had given me about why she had slept with Astrid. Something seemed amiss.

“Just forget it,” I said, and turned away from Dylan.

I took my seat in class beside Nadine, who said, “Lover boy looks like you just shot his dog in front of him.”

I watched as Dylan slinked into class with a wounded look on his face. He took a seat in a distant corner of the room, and looked down at the floor.

“Yeah, well, you know what they say, love is a battlefield,” I said.

“You’re a heartbreaker, Kelly Rodriguez,” Claudia said.

I shrugged indifferently.

A few minutes later, class began.

Professor Werner, a heavyset bald man with only some scraggly gray hair running along the sides of his head dressed in a sharp dark blue suit, took his place in front of the class and said, “Good morning, class. Today we shall continue with our previous lecture on the distinction between promises and contracts. Miss Samir, can you please refresh the class’s recollection on that distinction?”

Claudia, who was sitting beside Nadine, snapped to attention.

“Uh, yes,” Claudia said. “Well, the difference is a contract is enforceable in court, a promise is not.”

Professor Werner shook his head irritably.

“No! No! No!” Professor Werner barked loudly enough to make Claudia jump in her seat. Nadine and I did the same thing. I think Professor Werner made the entire class jump.

“You did not pay attention,” Professor Werner accused Claudia. “That degree of dereliction is inexcusable in my class. I will not abide dilettantes. I have a sacred charge to make you wise in the ways of the law, and I have no tolerance for those who approach the study of law with lackluster commitment. I need your commitment. Surely someone was paying attention.”

Professor Werner turned his sharp gaze away from Claudia with disgust, as if she had just vomited in front of him. Claudia looked like she was on the verge of tears. Professor Werner glanced at Nadine, who withered under his stare. He turned his nose up at her, perhaps feeling that she made for inadequately challenging prey. Finally, Professor Werner turned to me.

Professor Werner’s eyes met mine for a moment, then his eyes lowered to my chest. There, in front of the entire class, he took a few moments to stare at my ample breasts. Perhaps he thought his eyes lingered on my chest too briefly for anyone to notice. And maybe he was right, maybe the glance was too subtle for anyone else to pick up on it. But men leered at me constantly, and I had become a connoisseur of all the different methods men had for sneaking glances at my body, or, in some cases, just blatantly gawking at me. It was as obvious to me that Professor Werner was fantasizing about what my breasts must look like exposed as it was to everyone else in the room that Professor Werner was as bald as a worn out tire.

After what felt like an eternity but could not have been longer than a few seconds, Professor Werner lifted his gaze up from my breasts and looked me in the eye again.

“Miss Rodriguez, enlighten the classroom,” Professor Werner commanded. “Explain the distinction between a promise and a contract. Speak loudly. Fill the room with your brilliance.”

Maybe on a different day I would have been intimidated by Professor Werner. But in that moment, I was tired, angry, and horny. I was in no mood to be fucked with, least of all by some lecherous bloated, blowhard. Professor Werner had messed with the wrong bitch.

I started by arching my back to stick my big boobs out as far as they would go. Every guy in the room was probably beginning to sprout a hard-on, Professor Werner included, and I could feel the eyes of every woman in the room rolling back with contempt…and envy. I leaned forward and rested my plump breasts on the desk in front of me before grabbing a loose lock of hair hanging from the end of one of my pigtails and wrapping it around my forefinger playfully, then stared up at the ceiling for several long moments as if straining to formulate a response.

Just when it seemed as if Professor Werner was about to erupt with anger at my delay in responding to his query, I said in the most syrupy, kittenish tone I could muster, “The distinction between a promise on the one hand and a contract on the other is that, unlike a promise, a contract requires a mutual, bargained-for exchange of benefits and obligations between the respective parties, a concept which is referred to in the the relevant nomenclature as ‘consideration.’ A promise is merely the undertaking of a unilateral obligation by a promisor without any consideration given. The flaw in the reasoning of my colleague, Ms. Samir, is that she fails to recognize that a promise given without legal consideration may nevertheless be enforced by a court through the exercise of equitable principles where the promisee has justifiably relied on the promise of the promisor to his or her detriment. Moreover, Ms. Samir’s response fails to take into account the fact that there are limited circumstances in which a court may refuse to enforce an otherwise valid contract, for example, where parties have entered into a contract to engage in unlawful conduct, or where the only means of enforcing the contract is by ordering the specific performance of unique services.”

After I finished providing my answer, I took the lock of hair wrapped around my finger, placed it in my mouth, nibbled on it coquettishly, and grinned.

Professor Werner’s jaw dropped. A loud murmuring arose among the other students in the classroom. Clearly I had made the desired impression.

“Eh, well…that was…eh, that was…eloquently put Miss Rodriguez,” Professor Werner said. “You were certainly paying attention during my last lecture. Kudos to you for that.”

I spit out the hair I was chewing meditatively in my mouth and said, “No. I skipped the last class for personal reasons. I got all that out of the textbook. Sorry, I mean the casebook.”

Whatever approximation of a chubby that Professor Werner had begun to sprout under all the rolls of fat he carried beneath his fancy suit must have withered and died right there in that moment, to judge by the expression on his face.

Before anyone could say anything more, a loud grunt came from the back of the room.

“My chest!” I heard Dylan shout.

I turned to see Dylan gripping his chest with both hands, a look of excruciating agony plastered across his face.

People began screaming and getting up from their seats as Dylan fell to the floor. Several students raced toward his fallen form as other students began to call for paramedics.

“Oh my god,” Claudia said. “What’s wrong with him?”

I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew what was wrong with Dylan. He was having a heart attack, just like the man at the hotel bar who had slept with Astrid.

“Dylan!” I screamed.

I raced toward Dylan, but several classmates had already set up a perimeter around him and were holding everyone at bay. A number of powerful hands held me back.

Someone cried, “Make some space. The paramedics are going to need room. You can’t do anything for him.”

I kept trying to push past them, but I lacked the physical strength.

“Dylan!” I screamed again.

I didn’t know what I was trying to do. In my research on magic, I had heard of some spells that could theoretically restart a stalled human heart, but I hadn’t bothered to learn them and they were so crude that they could just as easily have caused a heart to explode. I didn’t know CPR or anything about human anatomy that could help. But I was overwhelmed with a desire to help. Dylan wasn’t just some stranger like Astrid’s victim of the day before, he was someone I had gotten to know and like in a few short days. Whatever he may have done to wrong me, he certainly didn’t deserve to die.

I felt softer, more delicate hands pull me away.

“Kelly, stop,” I heard Nadine say. “There’s nothing you can do. Stop.”

Nadine and Claudia yanked me away and practically dragged me out into the hallway.

As Nadine and Claudia hauled me away, I could hear Professor Werner, struggling to exercise some limited authority after the verbal castration he had suffered at my hands moments earlier, exclaim, “Ladies, gentlemen, campus medical staff are on their way. Let us please make some room for them by filing out of the classroom.”

Indeed, as Nadine and Claudia led me out of the lecture hall along with most of our classmates, we saw an ambulance drive over the grassy field immediately outside the hall and then saw several paramedics leap out of the vehicle and race inside.

At some point, I had stopped struggling and I stood there dumbfounded by my complete impotence. Someone I cared about was dying, and there was nothing I could do to help him.

Nadine put a hand on my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, honey, I’m sure they’ll take care of him and Dylan will be all right.”

Claudia gently padded me on the back and said, “It’s all in God’s hands now, Kelly. You need to have faith.”

“God’s hands,” I repeated blankly. “In God’s hands. I have to go.”

I ran away from Nadine and Claudia with the same speed I had exhibited after getting handed the football during a game back in high school.

“Where are you going?” Claudia called after me.

I didn’t bother to explain.

I ran all the way to the parking lot. I made my way to my car and popped open the trunk. I reached in and pulled out the copy of On the History of the Blinding of the Prophet Tiresias and the Legacy Thereof I had bought the day before. Then I ran to the library.

Chapter Fifteen

I burst through the front door of Erica’s magic shop and shouted, “I know what she is!”

Erica ignored me. She was standing behind the counter and, standing across from her, was a burly man sporting a thick beard and sunglasses dressed in jeans, a flannel shirt, and a leather vest with lettering stitched onto it that read “The Red-Eyed Bastards.” They were both too engrossed in their own conversation to pay me any mind.

“I’m not asking for your judgment, lady, do you carry it or don’t you?” the burly man asked.

“I don’t care what you’ve heard or who you’ve heard it from, I run a reputable business,” Erica said. “I don’t sell ground up unicorn horn.”

The burly man looked around nervously, and only then did he notice me. He looked me up and down then quickly turned back to Erica.

“Keep it down, lady,” he said. “Nobody’s got to know my business.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” Erica told him. “If you don’t leave voluntarily, I will feel compelled to use a banishing spell.”

“All right, take it easy, I’m going,” the burly man said.

He walked toward the door, glaring at my chest as he did so.

“Nice tits,” he said to me with a smirk.

“Fuck off, loser,” I barked.

The man laughed as he walked past me. He opened the front door and held it open as he turned back to me and said, “I like you, mama. If you ever feel like riding with the Red-Eyes, you come and ask for Armando. I’d like to see how you ride.”

He laughed again and continued walking away, letting the door close behind him. Moments later, I heard the sound of a motorcycle engine revving up and driving away.

“Who was that?” I asked as I approached Erica at the counter.

Erica shook her head.

“Just some lowly thug off the street who thinks I’m as low as he is,” Erica said.

“Is there something wrong with selling unicorn horn?” I asked.

“Let me put it to you like this, Kelly,” she said. “How would you react if someone came up to you and said they were looking to buy a teenage sex slave?”

I arched an eyebrow.

“Come on, you already know my answer to that,” I said.

“Being asked if I sell unicorn horn is not that different,” Erica said. “With that unpleasantness behind us, how can I help you, Kelly?”

I placed my copy of On the History of the Blinding of the Prophet Tiresias and the Legacy Thereof on the counter, opened to a specific page, and pointed at a passage.

“It’s right there, Erica,” I said. “A man can be transformed into a succubus if he commences intercourse with one and drives it to orgasm without releasing his seed into her.”

“A succubus?” Erica said. “No, Kelly, that can’t be right. Succubi are otherworldly spirits who visit men in their dreams and drain their mana. They don’t ordinarily take physical form.”

I nodded.

“You’re right,” I said. “But this section of the book talks about human-succubus hybrids. The first of them came into existence thousands of years ago during the rise of the fertility cults. They’ve been around ever since.”

I had spent most of the day in the library on campus pouring over On the History of the Blinding of the Prophet Tiresias and the Legacy Thereof. Gender swaps among humans had their origins in ancient fertility cults. In the ancient world, many sorcerers thought that women were closer to divinity because, like the gods, they could create life. Some sorcerers came to believe that they could tap into that divine feminine power by transforming male subjects into females and then manipulating the life-creating forces of their newly female servants. It was thought that the feminine power of males who were transformed into women was greater than that of naturally born females because, in sacrificing their masculinity, they were currying favor with the gods.

In an effort to raise themselves up to the level of gods, a few sorcerers created fertility cults, sacrificing the masculinity of young male virgins by transforming them into girls then forming harems out of the feminized youths. By draining men of their masculine life force and exploiting the female energy of the transformed slaves, the sorcerers who led these cults increased their power and were able to use magic to improve crop yields and make the harvests of early civilizations more productive. These cults still existed throughout the world in the modern day, although magic practitioners had expanded their interests beyond increasing crop yields to more lucrative goals, like increasing the value of their stock portfolios or gaining influence over political leaders.

The fertility cults of the ancient world had taken a particular interest in succubi, transfixed by the ability of the succubi to drain men of mana as they slept at night through the use of erotic dreams. Hoping to harness the power of the succubi, sorcerers and their harems used magic to trap the spirits and tried to bond with them. Succubi were able to take physical form for brief periods of time, and the attempts to bond with them resulted in the creation of human-succubus hybrids.

“They’re like vampires,” I continued explaining to Erica. “Except instead of feasting on human blood, they feed on…uh, well…semen.

“How does that lead to gender swaps or heart attacks?” Erica asked.

“It’s not the semen itself they want,” I said. “Unlike true succubi, human-succubi hybrids feed on masculine energy, not mana. Semen only serves as a vehicle for the transfer of a victim’s masculine life force. By feeding on that life force, a hybrid gains vitality, strength, youth, beauty, prolonged lifespan, and other benefits. A hybrid can drain just enough of a man’s masculine energy to increase her power without seriously harming the man, but when a hybrid drains a man of too much energy too quickly, it can cause death. Usually this will express itself as a sudden respiratory or cardiovascular episode, like a heart attack or suffocation, so it looks like natural causes or an accident.”

“That explains the man at the hotel who slept with Astrid, but what about Jane?” Erica asked.

“This is where things get really crazy,” I said. “To drain a man of his masculine life force, a human-succubus hybrid releases a burst of energy from her body through an orgasm. This orgasmic energy causes the masculine life force to flow into a man’s semen, but it briefly fills the man with the hybrid’s mana. In the ordinary course of things, her mana will flow out of the victim with his semen and masculine life force. But if the victim doesn’t ejaculate and the hybrid’s mana stays inside him, it corrupts his mana and consumes it, transforming the victim into another human-succubus hybrid.”

“That would certainly explain why the transformation spell didn’t work on Jane,” Erica observed. “Because transformation spells are ineffective against succubi, it stands to reason they wouldn’t work on human-succubus hybrids.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“It sounds like you saved Jane’s life,” Erica said.

“What?”

“The impotence spell,” Erica said. “That must be why Jane wasn’t able to ejaculate and expel Astrid’s mana.”

“Oh, right,” I muttered.

I hadn’t realized that Jane’s transformation into a hybrid was my fault until Erica had pointed it out. I felt bad about that, but Erica was right. The impotence spell may have saved Jane’s life.

“How did Jane react to the news?” Erica asked. “She was horrified when she thought she had been transformed into a woman, she must have had a nervous breakdown when she learned she’s no longer completely human.”

The feeling of gratification I had experienced upon solving the mystery of Jane’s gender swap abruptly dissipated, replaced by sorrow over the events that had transpired earlier.

“Oh, Erica, that’s the worst part,” I said. “Jane doesn’t know, I haven’t had a chance to tell her. Last night, Jane slept with the classmate I invited over, a guy named Dylan. She must have used her lure on him without even realizing it and drained most of his energy because this morning he had a heart attack. He’s in the hospital now and I don’t know if he’s going to pull through.”

“Goodness!” Erica exclaimed. “That’s terrible!”

Succubi had a natural lure that they used to draw men to them, sort of like a mystical pheromone they could direct at their victims to draw them in. My research had indicated that hybrids also possessed a lure.

“Erica, I feel like absolute crap,” I said. “Dylan is really a sweet guy, he was just overcome by Jane’s new power. This morning, just before he suffered his heart attack in class, I was angry at him over the fact that he had slept with Jane. I totally chewed him out and…oh my god! I just realized what this means. The same thing happened to Jane. She didn’t betray me when she slept with Astrid! She was just manipulated by Astrid’s lure, just like Dylan was manipulated by Jane!”

My heart did a joyful somersault. I hadn’t realized how hurt I still felt over Jane’s betrayal until that moment, when I realized Jane hadn’t betrayed me at all. She really did love me, she had just been Astrid’s victim, no more to blame for what had happened to her than a fly caught in a spider’s web.

My sudden elation quickly turned to grief again when I reminded myself that the man I had loved and with whom I had hoped to spend the rest of my life was now an inhuman monster, driven to feed off the energy of unsuspecting men. Nothing in my research had indicated that it was possible to reverse the process that turned a man into a human-succubus hybrid. As far as I knew, the love of my life was forever trapped in her new form.

Erica brought me back down to Earth by saying, “Kelly, you need to focus. Where is Jane now? You need to help her gain control over herself before she hurts anyone else.”

Tears began to flow out of my eyes and down my cheeks.

“I don’t know,” I said between sobs. “After I found her in bed with Dylan, I told her to get out and she ran off. I don’t know where she is and the police are looking for her. Last night, just before I found Jane and Dylan in bed together, a detective stopped by my place to ask me questions about her disappearance…I mean, Johnny’s disappearance. They think Jane may have had something to do with it. What did I ever do to deserve this? The man I love has been transformed into a monster, the police are after him, another guy I care about is in the hospital, and there’s nothing I can do to fix things.”

Overcome with hopelessness, I continued crying.

“That’s bullshit, Kelly,” Erica said as she put her hands on my shoulders and stared into my eyes. “You’re one of the strongest women I’ve ever met. Most people faced with the sort of problems you’ve dealt with in the time I’ve known you would have folded and raised a white flag of surrender. You confronted your problems head on and overcame them. Now get ahold of yourself.”

I nodded. I sniffed a couple of times and made a concerted effort to stop the flow of tears streaming out of my eyes.

“You’re right,” I said. “There’s work to be done. I need to find Jane. Then I need to figure out a way to turn her back into Johnny. And I need to find a way to help Dylan.”

“One step at a time,” Erica said. “As far as finding Jane goes, that’s the easy part.”

“Really? How?”

Erica laughed.

“Kelly, you’re talking to Madam Zolga. I’m a psychic, remember? I may not be a particularly skilled practitioner of magic, but when it comes to scrying, that’s no challenge at all.”

I smiled.

“How could I be so stupid?” I said. “Where’s your crystal ball? It shouldn’t take you long to find Jane.”

“Come this way,” she said as she led me toward the back of her shop.

We entered a room decorated like a living room with some couches and chairs, and a table with a glass sphere cradled in a small wooden stand. Erica and I sat down at the table and she recited a brief incantation.

The crystal ball began to glow a pale violet hue. Erica placed her hands around the crystal ball and focused on it intently. An image like a clump of rain clouds began to form within the crystal ball. Erica continued to focus and the cloud-like mass within the sphere formed into crude figures of people seated at a counter. Then the image came into focus and I could see Jane sitting at a bar, a glass of wine in hand, several men seated near her casting glances in her direction. Jane wore a pensive expression on her face, and she kept looking around suspiciously.

“Oh no, it looks like she’s already looking to feed,” I said. “Where is this place?”

“Give me one moment,” Erica said.

The image in the crystal ball changed to show the exterior of a trendy bar with a sign out front that read “Heartbreakers.” I quickly looked it up on my phone and saw that it wasn’t far away.

“I need to get over there and stop her before she hurts anyone,” I said as I got up from the table.

Erica gripped me by the wrist and said, “Wait. What if she tries to hurt you? I don’t know anything about succubi hybrids, but most mystical beings can easily hurt a normal human. Who knows for sure what abilities she may have?”

I thought about it for a moment. Erica was right, I didn’t know anything about hybrids beyond what I had read in a book. For all I knew, Jane was so consumed by her need for masculine energy that nothing else mattered to her.

“I’ve got to try and help her,” I said. “Somewhere in there is the man I love. There has to be some way to get him back.”

I pulled away from Erica and dashed out of her shop.

Chapter Sixteen

Happy hour was well underway at Heartbreakers by the time I walked inside. The crowd of patrons in the bar were making a raucous when I walked in, and the smell of alcohol was thick in the air. I looked around at all the handsome, virile young men who were staring right back at me with covetous eyes. The place was a turkey shoot for any woman looking for a quick hook up. For Jane, with her mystical lure, it was nothing short of a slaughterhouse.

With all the easy targets that filled the place, I feared I was already too late. Then after a few minutes, I spotted Jane still sitting at the bar, several men eyeing her like hungry lions. Little did they suspect that they were the ones on the menu.

I minced up to her and said, “Jane, I need you to come with me. We have a lot to talk about.”

Jane turned to look at me with an expression of shock on her face.

“How did you find me?” she asked.

“Magic powers, remember?” I said. “I got them.”

Jane grunted.

“Magic, yeah, I know,” she said. She waved her hand across her body, “That’s how I got into this mess. You must be having a good laugh seeing me like this. Is this what you wanted? To have me worked up like a bitch in heat? With all these urges? Okay, you’ve had your fun. I get it. This is my punishment for what happened with Astrid. I can’t make you change me back into a man, but I won’t be your plaything anymore.”

Jane got up and walked toward the door. I ran after her and stepped in front of her to block her path. Jane abruptly stopped.

“Jane, wait, you’ve got it all wrong,” I said. “I didn’t do this to you, but I’ve figured out what happened. And I know you didn’t mean to cheat on me. Astrid used a kind of magic to seduce you. I know it wasn’t your fault. Come with me and I’ll explain everything.”

Jane glowered at me.

“Forget it, we have nothing to talk about,” Jane said. “Do you remember saying that to me when I reached out to you for help after this happened to me? I do. Now fuck off and leave me alone.”

“Jane, please, I care about you and I want to help you,” I insisted.

“Yeah? Prove it.”

How was I supposed to prove to Jane how much I care about her? How was I going to make her understand that I was still in love with the man she used to be? How could I prove to Johnny that I still loved him, even trapped as he was in the body of a mystical being? Then it hit me.

I reached over to Jane, wrapped my arms around her, and pressed my lips agains hers. I slipped my tongue into her mouth and used it to gently massage hers. I heard wolf whistles, catcalls, and cheers come from the drunken bar patrons all around us. I ignored them. For the briefest possible moment, I was with the man I loved again, and my world looked a little brighter.

Then I pulled away from Jane and stared at her stunned face. That was when I realized what I had done. I had just kissed a girl. Granted, it was actually a human-succubus hybrid who had once been my boyfriend, but it looked like a girl. And I was repulsed by what I had done. I looked at Jane’s frail frame, her soft muscles, the demure little bumps that passed for her breasts, and I felt a little nauseous. If I had needed a reminder that I was strictly a heterosexual woman, that kiss had given it to me.

Jane took a step back.

“That was weird,” she said.

“Uh, yeah, but hopefully I made my point,” I said.

“And what point was that?” Jane said. “That you’re a closet lesbian?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “My point is I care about you.”

If there was one thing I was sure of in that moment it was that I was not a lesbian. I hoped with all my heart that I would be able to transform Jane into the gorgeous hunk she had been. The little nymph she had become wasn’t doing it for me.

Jane sighed.

“I’m going to sit down and order a beer,” she said. “You have until I’m done with it to explain everything.”

Jane sat down at the counter and ordered a beer from the bartender, who was thankfully female and unaffected by her magical charms. The bartender set an open bottle down in front of Jane, and she took a long swig.

I took a deep breath.

“Okay, so there are these spirits called succubi that come from another world and visit men in their dreams to steal their mana,” I said.

Jane raised a finger at me and said, “Hold on a minute.”

Then she took another long swig from her beer and completely drained it.

“I’m going to need another beer for this,” Jane said as she ordered another beer from the bartender.

“Right, well, thousands of years ago, these succubi managed to breed with humans, for lack of a better phrase,” I continued. “This interbreeding resulted in the creation of human-succubus hybrids, beings that look like human women but who possess incredible power. To maintain their power, hybrids have to drain men of their masculine energy. As long as they feed on masculine energy, these hybrids possess enhanced strength, vitality, beauty, and extended lifespans, among other things.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Jane asked as she finished her second beer and ordered a third.

“I think Astrid is a human-succubus hybrid,” I said. “And I think she accidentally transformed you into one.”

“Great,” Jane said. “Now I’m some sort of life-sucking spirit monster. How exactly do I drain men of their energy?”

I knew this part wasn’t going to be easy for Jane.

“The way you did with Dylan last night,” I said.

Jane slammed her beer down on the counter and said, “You mean I need to have sex with men to stay alive?”

She said that loudly enough for several people around us to stare at her and give us strange looks.

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” I said.

Jane continued guzzling down beers as I explained what I had witnessed Astrid do to the man at the hotel bar the day before, and what had happened to Dylan. Then I explained how hybrids absorb masculine energy. By the time I was done explaining, I think Jane had drunk enough beers to kill a normal human woman.

“This is a lot to take in,” Jane said. “I’m not sure which is worse, being a spirit monster who feeds on semen, or the fact that I almost killed a man.”

I gently placed my hand on Jane’s.

“Babe, I know this is all completely insane,” I said. “The important thing is that I’m going to help you through this. You didn’t do anything wrong. Astrid used her lure to ensnare you against your will. You didn’t cheat on me, not by choice. You were as powerless to resist Astrid’s lure as Dylan was to resist yours. You were an innocent victim, and you’re still every bit the man I fell in love with. I’ll figure out a way to get you back to your old self.”

Jane waved her hands over her body, like a show room model waving her hands over a brand new car.

“You call this every bit the man you fell in love with?” she said in disbelief. “I have boobs and a vagina, Kelly. I’m going crazy with sick urges. I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I want a rock hard cock right now. I’m not a man. I’m not even a woman. I’m a freak. I’m supposed to perk up because you’ve forgiven me for sleeping with Astrid against my will? Thanks. Small consolation. On top of…wait a minute. Why did I turn into a monster when Dylan only suffered a heart attack?”

I winced. This was about to get even more unpleasant. I explained the mechanics behind a man’s transformation into a hybrid.

“Ugh,” Jane grunted. “This was your fault after all. If you hadn’t put that impotence spell on me, I would still be human.”

“Didn’t you hear what happened to Astrid’s latest victim?” I asked. “You would be dead right now if I hadn’t cast that spell.”

“Being a monster is a fate worse than death,” she said.

“Babe, I’ll find a way to make you human again,” I said. “We can work past this and get back together.”

“Yeah?” Jane said. “Okay. What’s your game plan for making me normal again?”

That was a good question. I didn’t have a good answer. I hadn’t found any information about transforming a human-succubus hybrid into a normal human. But it had to be possible. I mean, I had previously changed reality somehow. Or I thought I had. If I could do that, there must be someway of reversing what had happened to Jane.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I may know someone who can help.”

Chapter Seventeen

“You’re not exactly filling me with confidence here,” Jane said as I pulled into the trailer park. “Your friend is a witch and she can’t magically make a better place to live than a mobile home?”

“I never said Summer was a witch,” I pointed out. “Summer’s aunt, Chastity, is a witch. Summer just knows a lot about magic because she was raised by Chastity.”

“Why don’t we go see Chastity instead? Maybe she knows how to make me human again.”

I sighed.

“Chastity doesn’t like me,” I said. “Long story short, she hates me for encouraging Summer to move in with her fiancé Teddy. That and Chastity hates men generally, so the fact that I used to be one is another reason for her not to like me.”

It was dark by the time we reached Summer’s place. My car’s headlights flashed onto a pale blue double-wide mobile home that sat under a sagging oak tree. I parked out in front of the mobile home and shut off my car’s engine.

Jane followed me as I stepped onto the home’s porch and knocked on the front door. It opened and we were greeted by the sight of a barrel-chested white guy in his forties dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and a trucker’s hat. He was holding an open bottle of beer in one hand. A smile spread across his face as he recognized me.

“Hey, Kelly, always good to have you drop by, little lady,” he said as he wrapped me up in a bear hug.

“It’s always good to drop by, Teddy,” I said as I hugged him back. After I was done hugging Teddy, I took a step back and gestured at Jane. “This is my friend Jane. We came to talk to Summer.”

Teddy stared at Summer with a slack jaw.

“Hello there, Miss Jane, a real pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Teddy said as he shook Jane’s hand.

Jane took Teddy’s hand and looked him over like a butcher sizing up a chunk of meat.

“The pleasure is all mine,” Jane said in a sultry tone of voice with a predatory smile on her face.

Teddy led us into the living room and excused himself to go grab Summer, looking over his shoulder to sneak a glance at Jane.

Once Teddy was out of earshot, I turned to Jane and said, “Don’t use your lure on him.”

“What?”

“You basically have the ability to hypnotize men to make them sleep with you,” I said. “I think you can do that to any man. It’s what Astrid did to you and what you did to Dylan. Don’t do that to Teddy.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Jane protested. “He’s a hot slab of man-meat for an older guy, I’ll admit that, but I’m not doing anything to him. I mean, there’s sure plenty I would like to do to him. Ugh. These urges are driving me nuts. I feel like I want to hop into bed with every man I see. This is hell.”

“Don’t hop into bed with this one,” I cautioned. “Just try to get your urges under control.”

“Aunt Kelly!” a young boy shrieked as he ran into the room and hugged my legs. “I missed you!”

“I missed you, too, Brent,” I said as I picked up the four-year-old and gave him a hug and a peck on the cheek. Chastity’s son was absolutely adorable.

I put him back down, turned toward Jane, and said, “Brent, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. This is my friend Jane.”

Brent’s eyes went wide as he caught sight of Jane.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked Jane.

Jane glowered and said, “A whole lot, kid.”

“Brent, please go play with your toys in the other room,” Summer said as she walked into the living room.

Standing by the entrance to the kitchen was a stunningly gorgeous blonde girl in her early twenties who wore a white crop top and a revealing denim skirt. She was slim but her muscles were toned, and she had perfectly sculpted curves. Her skin was sun kissed and smooth. She was a petite girl with small, delicate hands and feet, but still taller than me at about five-foot-two. Her breasts were massive. Looking into Summer’s face, I noticed more than a passing resemblance to Chastity that unnerved me a little. Chastity was a scary woman.

I minced up to Summer and hugged her warmly. Summer grinned and hugged me back.

“Girl, it’s so good to see you again,” I said.

“You, too, honey,” Summer said. “I never see enough of you. I’m sure you’ve been up to the devil’s work, haven’t you?”

“Girl, you do not know the half of it,” I said.

Teddy bolted past me and Summer, practically knocking me down in the process, and stood beside Jane. He wrapped an arm around Jane and said, “Honey, this is Kelly’s friend Jane. You think she can stay for dinner?”

I looked at Summer, nodded toward Jane, and cleared my throat. Summer noted my gestures, then looked Jane over.

“Teddy, can you excuse us girls for a few minutes?” Summer said. “We’ve got some catching up to do.”

“Oh sure,” Teddy said. “Why don’t I go set the table for dinner to make sure there’s a seat for Jane?”

With that, Teddy lumbered out of the room, once again looking over his shoulder to sneak a glance at Jane.

When he was gone, Summer looked at Jane and asked, “What’s a matter, girl, you cast a love spell you can’t control?”

“What?” Jane said.

“My man only has eyes for me,” Summer said. “With him making eyes at you like that, the only explanation is that you have him under a spell.”

“That’s why I brought Jane here,” I said. “It’s not a love spell. Jane has a much bigger problem than that.”

The three of us sat down on the couch in the living room and I explained the entire sordid story to Summer.

“Oh lord, I’m sorry about what’s happened to you, Jane,” Summer said. “Being a woman is a gift, but being a semen demon is a curse.”

“Tell me about it,” Jane said.

“You’re familiar with human-succubus hybrids?” I asked.

Summer nodded.

“Unfortunately I am. A demonic spirit that drains men of their life force? Aunt Chastity loves succubi. She thinks hybrids do the world a public service by getting rid of men. She’s not crazy about fertility cults because she doesn’t like sorcerers and doesn’t like the idea of them draining women of their divine power, even if those women used to be men. But the succubi? Yeah, she’s a fan. A bunch of her friends are succubi. I met more of them than I care to think about.”

“Is there any way to reverse a transformation into one? Can I get my Johnny back to normal?”

Summer stroked her chin with one hand and and cast her eyes off to the side.

“Hmmm. Transformation spells are out of the question. When a man turns into a succubus, it changes his very soul. That succubus mana won’t even let you change the body, it’s just that strong. Making a wish with a djinn could work, but it would drain Jane’s mana, of course. Plus, I hear djinn don’t really care for succubi mana. They don’t like the taste of it. Pure humans are better for them. And you can never find a djinn when you want one. They only turn up at the worst possible time.”

“Tell me about it,” I interjected as I rolled my eyes at the memory of my drunken encounter with Mort, the djinn who had transformed me into a woman.

“A soul transfer would work,” Summer continued. “Sort of. If you could find a man willing to swap bodies with Jane, you could at least put her in a male body. But she would still have the spirit of a succubus and still need to feed on men. She just wouldn’t have the body to feed on men. I can’t think of anything else. Maybe Aunt Chastity knows a way to reverse the transformation. She would never tell me.”

“It’s worth a try,” Jane said. “Give me her number. I’ll call Chastity and ask.”

“You don’t understand,” Summer said. “Aunt Chastity would tell you you’re perfect just the way you are. She would never help you become a man again.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to ask,” Jane said.

“Girl, let me tell you about Aunt Chastity,” Summer said. “I wasn’t born this way. I used to be a boy, too, just like you. I used to hang around with a rough crowd and Aunt Chastity thought I would mellow out if she turned me into a girl. She said it was only temporary, just to teach me a lesson. Look how well that worked out for me.”

“She lied to you?” Jane asked. “She just left you like this?”

“Not exactly,” Summer said. “Being a girl didn’t get me to calm down, just the opposite. I got a little out of hand with all the attention boys showed me. I was only a girl for a few weeks before I got knocked up. Aunt Chastity offered to turn me back into a boy anyway, but she told me I would lose the baby. I decided to stay a girl. I’ve got no regrets, but if that’s how she treats her own flesh and blood, how do you think she’ll deal with you?”

Jane sighed and let her shoulders slump down.

“This is pointless,” Jane said. “I’m stuck like this.”

“Don’t lose hope,” I said. “I’ll keep looking for a way to set things right.”

“Sure,” Summer said. “Just because I don’t have an answer for you doesn’t mean there isn’t one out there.”

“That’s a nice thought, but what am I going to do in the meanwhile?” Jane asked. “I need a man. I can’t resist these urges any longer. But if I act on these urges, I’m going to end up killing someone. I can’t deal with this.”

“Wait a second, no one ever said you had to kill a man to feed on him,” Summer said. “You can drain just enough energy from a man to satisfy your hunger without killing him. You need to be careful, but you can do it.”

“Really?” Jane said hopefully. “I hope you’re right, because I need to hop into bed with a man. Any man.”

“Not my man,” Jane said. “You have to do whatever you have to do, but leave Teddy alone.”

“Oh, Jane, please don’t give in to your urges,” I said. “I know you didn’t want to sleep with Astrid or Dylan, and I know these feelings you’re having aren’t your fault. I forgive you for all that, but I can’t stand the idea of you sleeping with anyone else. Once I find a way to get you back to normal, we can be together again.”

“I can’t fight it much longer,” Jane said. “These urges are too powerful.”

My heart sank. When I realized that Jane had just been an innocent victim, I had filled with hope that she and I could reconcile. Seeing her give in to her new nature robbed me of that hope. It was like I was losing her all over again.

I reached over to Jane and gripped her hands tenderly.

“Please, babe, fight the urges,” I said. “I love you and I want be with you. Have some faith. I’ll find a way.”

Jane grunted.

“Ugh. This is unbearable. Okay, Kelly, I’ll try. But you better come up with something fast. I’m at my wit’s end.”

“It’s sweet to see you two trying to get a handle on this situation, but we’ve got a bigger problem here,” Summer said. “We can’t just let the succubus who did this to Jane keep hurting innocent men. We have to stop her.”

“What are we supposed to do?” I asked. “Call the cops on her?”

“Of course not,” Summer said. “There’s nothing they can do to stop her. We have to do it ourselves.”

I glanced around the living room. There was an empty bottle of beer on a coffee table. I picked it up.

“Jane, I love you, but I need to make a point,” I said.

“Huh?” Jane muttered.

I swung the empty beer bottle over my head and brought it down on Jane’s skull. The bottle shattered. Jane simply kept staring at me with a confused expression. She hadn’t so much as blinked an eye.

“Why didn’t I feel that?”’Jane asked, awe in her voice.

“One of the perks of being a hybrid,” I said. “You’re stronger and more durable than a human being.”

“Totally unnecessary, honey,” Summer chastised me. “I didn’t need that little stunt to know just how tough a semen demon can be. Now I have to use some magic to clean up that mess, and you know I don’t like to use magic.”

Summer pointed at the shattered beer bottle and recited an incantation. The shards of glass flew up from the floor where they had fallen and pulled themselves back together. In an instant, the beer bottle was back in one piece. I set it back down on the coffee table.

“Sorry, Summer,” I said. “I just wanted to make sure we’re all on the same page.”

Jane looked at us in bewilderment.

“Am I…am I invincible?” Jane asked.

“Hardly,” Summer answered. “There are many things that can hurt you, you’re just much stronger than us mere mortals. You’ll also live and stay young and beautiful for as long as you feed on men.”

“What exactly are you proposing that we do about Astrid?” I asked. “Kill her?”

Summer shook her head.

“We don’t need to kill her, we just need to keep her from hurting anyone else,” Summer said. She scratched her head and stared blankly at a wall for a moment. “Maybe…maybe we can send her to Hell.”

“You just said we don’t need to kill her,” I said.

“No, I mean, maybe we can literally transport her to Hell,” Summer clarified.

“Hell is real?” Jane asked.

“Yeah, but it’s not what it’s made out to be,” Summer said. “It’s not fire and brimstone and pits full of molten lava. It’s more like Las Vegas, but not as fun, just a place full of lowlifes looking for a good time.”

“Is that where sinners go when they die?” Jane asked.

“Sometimes,” Summer said. “People can go to all sorts of places when they die.”

“Does that mean that the devil and God are real?” Jane asked.

“Lucifer certainly is,” Summer said. “He runs the place. As for God, that’s a loaded question because…”

I put my hand up in front of Summer.

“Girl, as much as I would love to get lost in a conversation on the eschatology of our universe, now is not the time,” I declared. “We have more practical considerations to worry about right now. Where is Hell? How do we get Astrid there? Can we throw a sack over Astrid’s head and throw her in the back of a van and drive her there?”

Summer giggled.

“Don’t be silly, Kelly,” Summer said. “Hell is another dimension. The world is filled with portals that lead to hell. People go to Hell all the time. Some of them without even knowing it. The best thing to do is create a portal and disguise it, then lure her through it.”

“You can open a portal to Hell?” I asked.

Summer smiled and nodded.

“Oh, it’s so easy, Kelly. It doesn’t take any skill at all. It’s so easy even high school kids can figure it out. It’s a popular trick at parties. Aunt Chastity used to open gates to Hell all the time to deal with people that got on her bad side. You know how I feel about using magic. I’m not a fan. But I’ll make an exception for this. It’s for a worthy cause.”

“How can we be sure that Astrid will stay in Hell if we put her there?” I asked. “You make it sound like there’s a revolving door to the place.”

“I can cast a binding spell to keep her trapped there,” Summer said.

“You guys said magic doesn’t work on succubi,” Jane said.

“Transformation spells don’t work on pure succubi or hybrids,” Summer said. “All sorts of other magic still works on them.”

“How convenient,” Jane pouted as she crossed her arms indignantly.

“Okay, if you can open a portal to Hell, then all we need to do is find Astrid and figure out a way to lure her,” I said. “Erica can handle finding her. All we need is some bait.”

Jane grunted.

“That’s the easiest part,” Jane said. “We just find some hot young stud to get her attention. If she’s anything like me, she’s not going to be able to resist.”

A horrible idea entered my head. I regretted it the moment I thought it up, but it was the simplest solution.

“I think I have an idea,” I said. “But it’s getting late and I have class tomorrow. Can we meet up at Erica’s shop tomorrow afternoon?”

“Sure,” Summer said. “I’ll ask my next door neighbor to keep an eye on Brent for a few hours. Miss Mulholland is a doll. She won’t mind at all.”

“Good. Then we’ll meet up tomorrow.”

Chapter Eighteen

“This is a bad idea,” I said as I stood in the backroom of Erica’s shop with Jane, Erica, and Summer.

“It’s your idea,” Summer said.

“That’s why I know it’s a bad one,” I said.

I had gone to class that morning and then immediately left school to pick up Jane at home and meet up with Summer at Erica’s so-called Occult Science Academy. I had called Erica the night before to explain our plan after Jane and I had left Summer’s place. Erica had been reluctant to participate in our hair-brained scheme, and had done her best to talk me out of it. Mystical beings weren’t to be trifled with, Erica had warned me. She changed her tune when I told her I would have to buy a large amount of supplies to carry out our plan.

The dean of my law school had sent out an email that morning updating the student body on Dylan’s condition. He was alive in the intensive care unit of a local hospital. His family had been notified and were by his side. That was all anyone knew. I hoped with all my heart that he would pull through.

Jane had been glad to learn Dylan was alive, but I could tell she felt guilty about what she had inadvertently done to him. That was just a part of who Jane was, as a man or a woman. She was a good person and would never voluntarily hurt anyone.

For my part, I felt bad about how I had treated both Jane and Dylan. They had been the victims of a magical power they didn’t even understand, and I had condemned them for succumbing to that power. I was motivated to find a way to transform Jane back into Johnny so I could make it up to him.

After meeting up with Jane, Summer, and Erica, I had shared my plan with them. They had all questioned my judgment but were willing to go along with my plan. I was less sure that I wanted to go forward with it.

“We’re waiting, Kelly,” Summer said.

I stared at the noxious luminous green concoction that sat in a glass beside Erica’s crystal ball on the table in front of me as it emitted the eerie glow that had become so familiar to me.

“Before you commence with this ill-advised little adventure, I just want to register my protest one last time,”Erica said. “I don’t know anything about human-succubus hybrids, but I know something about succubi. They’re temperamental creatures, manipulative, and greedy. They’re even worse than djinn. I agree that this Astrid creature is dangerous, you’ll get no argument from me about that. From my perspective, however, the danger she poses weighs in favor of leaving her alone. There are a number of dangerous beings roaming the world. It’s not our responsibility to protect people from them.”

“What a surprise!” Summer exclaimed as she threw her hands up in the air. “The magic dealer is happy to make a quick buck, but she doesn’t want to get involved in other people’s problems. Erica, the first thing you sold when you got into this business must have been your heart.”

“I beg your pardon!” Erica said. “I am a sensible woman who believes that the better part of valor is discretion. Unlike some people, I don’t go rushing headlong into trouble. Summer, you’ve been overtly hostile to me since you arrived here. May I ask why it is that you find me so objectionable?”

Summer took several steps toward Erica and barked, “You know damn well what my problem with you is, Erica! For years you sold supplies to Aunt Chastity and her coven knowing exactly what they did with those supplies. You saw her practically make a slave out of me, and you were all smiles and hugs with her.”

“I sell valuable commodities,” Erica said. “How my customers choose to use those commodities is their business. I don’t pass judgment.”

“Pass judgment?” Summer said. “Aunt Chastity is a bride of the devil. Summoning demons, casting curses, harvesting souls…Aunt Chastity and her coven did all that and worse. And you happily lined your pockets with their dirty money.”

Erica’s jaw dropped.

“That is prejudice, pure and simple,” Erica said. “Witches have suffered persecution for centuries because of small-minded prejudice of the kind you’re exhibiting right now. You should be ashamed.”

Summer put a hand on the crotch of the skimpy shorts she was wearing and said, “I was born with a dick? Know what happened to it?”

“Come now, Summer, you know very well that you’re much happier as a woman than you ever were as a man,” Erica said. “You’ve said so yourself numerous times. If anything, you should be grateful for what Chastity did for you.”

Summer snorted.

“The guy who got me pregnant when I was a teenager and then ran off gave me my son Brent,” Summer said. “You don’t see me sending that asshole a Christmas card. I made the most of the hand I got dealt.”

“You weren’t exactly a model of upstanding behavior as a young man,” Erica said.

“You look here…” Summer began.

“Enough!” I shouted as I jumped in between Erica and Summer and pushed them apart. “Summer, whatever axe you’ve got to grind with Erica, this isn’t the time for it. Erica, take it easy on, Summer. You were the one who warned me about Chastity, so don’t play innocent, you knew what she was capable of.”

Erica and Summer glared at one another, but they stopped bickering. That was all I could ask for.

I walked back to the table where the potion and crystal ball sat waiting.

“Now before I do this, does everyone understand their part?” I asked.

Jane, Summer, and Erica each assured me that they did.

“Jane, do you have that change of clothes I gave you?” I asked.

Jane lifted up a large brown bag and said, “Right here.”

“Okay,” I said. “Now everyone shut up. This is going to suck ass.”

I kicked a pair of beige mules with two-inch heels off my feet and kicked them to the side. Then I slipped out of the faded wash skinny jeans and sleeveless black Georgette blouse with ruffle trim that I was wearing and dropped them on the floor. Finally, I removed the gray cotton bra and panties I wore.

Summer wolf-whistled and said, “Damn, I wish I had your body.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I muttered.

I took a deep breath, cleared my head, recited the incantation, and then raised the glass filled with the potion to my lips.

The pain was immediate. There was a horrible burning sensation all along my chest as my breasts deflated like a pair of punctured balloons. My long silky black hair retracted into my scalp. Between my legs there was a dull, throbbing ache as my labia swelled up and fused together to create a crude scrotum, while my clitoris expanded to several times its normal size to form a moderately-sized penis. I howled in agony as my bones and muscles stretched and I sprouted up from five feet in height to six feet. I endured as much pain as I could, then I crumpled to the floor.

A moment later, I mumbled, “Did it work?”

“Get up and see for yourself,” Erica said.

Exhausted by the ordeal I had just gone through, I slowly pushed myself up off the ground. When I got to my feet, I was confronted by Jane, Summer, and Erica, who were all suddenly much smaller and had to crane their necks to look up at me. A moment later, they lowered their eyes and glanced at my crotch.
Summer giggled.

“You must be a grower, not a shower, Kelly,” Summer said with a smirk.

“I’m not complaining,” Jane said as she stared at my junk.

I cupped my genitals with one hand and reached an open hand toward Jane.

“Hand me my clothes,” I instructed in the old baritone I had not heard in months. My voice was so deep it sounded like a growl.

Jane passed me the paper bag she held in one hand. I reached inside and pulled out some boxer shorts I quickly put on. Then I slipped into a pair of relaxed-fit denim jeans and a loose black t-shirt emblazoned with the image of an angry woman stomping away from a bruised and battered man laying on the floor under the caption “Wham! Bam! Thank you, ma’am!”

As I put on a pair of black canvas shoes, Jane asked, “Is this who you used to be?”

I nodded.

“What’s the matter, babe, you don’t like what you see?” I asked.

“Au contraire,” Jane said as she snuck up behind me and squeezed my plump biceps. “I like it a lot.”

I stepped away from Jane. As I turned around to look at her, I began to say, “Stop right there, girl, I’m not interested in what you’re…”

I abruptly stopped talking. My jaw dropped. I was floored by Jane’s beauty. As a woman, I had failed to appreciate how gorgeous she was. In a man’s body coursing with testosterone, she looked like a tiny goddess. A svelte body without an ounce of fat, an hourglass figure sculpted with perfectly feminine curves, subtle yet perky breasts. My mind immediately flashed back to memories of what she had looked like naked, and I felt an old familiar stirring sensation between my legs that I had not experienced in months as I began to develop an erection.

“Cat got your tongue, honey?” Jane asked as she placed her hand under my jaw and closed my mouth.

“Stop using your lure on him,” Summer commanded.

Jane looked at Summer and said, “I’m not doing it on purpose.”

My head cleared. The part of me that was still a woman was disgusted by the feelings I had over Jane. I tried my best to think of hot, muscular men with big cocks to purge myself of thoughts of Jane’s petite, flimsy figure.

I had forgotten how quickly a physical change in sex leads to a change in sexual orientation. When I had first transformed from David into Kelly, my physical attraction to men had been instantaneous. Now that I had transformed from Kelly into David, I had zero interest in men. Thinking about naked musclebound men caused my nascent erection to subside.

My erection and the discomfort I had felt as it pressed against my pants had served to remind me how uncomfortable male genitalia were. As a man, I had taken for granted the way my penis constantly jostled around between my legs, bumping against my scrotum and inner thighs. Over the years, I had simply grown used to the perennial discomfort. It wasn’t until my transformation into Kelly, when I was bestowed with a functionally simpler and more streamlined set of genitals, that I realized how uncomfortable it was as a man to lug around my genitals as they dangled between my legs all the time. Now that I was male again, the discomfort I felt at hauling my genitals on the outside of my body was not a welcome sensation. Being spared that discomfort was one of the many things I preferred about being a woman.

I took a second look at Jane. Yes, she was beautiful. I enjoyed the look of her, but I didn’t feel an overwhelming urge to hop into bed with her.

“I’m thinking straight now,” I said. “Good job, Jane. Whatever you’re doing right now, keep doing it. Don’t use your lure.”

Jane looked back at me and said, “Uh, okay. I’ll try.”

“All right, enough goofing off,” I said turning to Erica. “Erica, you’re on.”

Erica stared back at me longingly.

“Hello,” I said. “Earth to Erica. Are you there, girl?”

Erica blinked several times in rapid succession.

“Oh, sorry Kelly, I got distracted,” Erica said. “I, uh, didn’t realize you were such a handsome man.”

“You girls are starting to make me feel like some sort of dyke,” I said. “That’s especially weird considering that I have a penis again.”

The four of us gathered around the table with the crystal ball and watched as Erica began to scry. She focused and an image of Astrid began to come into focus. She was in her office meeting with a client.

“Hopefully she goes out to feed soon,” I said.

“She’ll feed soon,” Summer assured me. “Succubi are pigs. They eat as often as they can get away with it. No offense, Jane.”

Jane shot a dirty look in Summer’s direction.

“Pure succubi do tend to be quite ravenous,” Erica agreed. “I can’t speak as to the habits of hybrids.”

Not much later, we saw Erica leave her office, get into the driver’s-seat of a luxury sedan, and drive to a fancy restaurant. She went inside and was escorted by the hostess to the bar where she took a seat and ordered a glass of wine. It was early in the evening and it would be a while before a crowd arrived to offer her a choice of victims.

“It’s show time, girls,” I said.

Chapter Nineteen

I stepped into the restaurant wearing a black slim fit suit jacket and pants with a blue shirt and red tie. The hostess asked me how many there were in my party, and I told her I was alone and would take a seat at the bar.

I had been caught off guard by Jane immediately after my transformation back into David Rodriguez. I hadn’t realized how powerful a succubus’s hold over a man was until Jane had used her lure on me. Thankfully, Jane had managed to gain enough control over her newfound ability to keep from ensnaring me again. I had hardened myself to that power and planned to exercise more control in Astrid’s presence.

The moment I laid eyes on Astrid, however, all that went out the window. I thought she had been breathtaking as Kelly. As David, I fell in love instantly. She was a holy vision. Ancient civilizations had worshipped succubi as divine figures, and I could understand why.

Astrid’s alabaster skin, platinum blonde hair, and pale blue eyes betrayed Nordic blood. She was dressed in a tight-fitting, strapless black dress that barely stretched down to her thighs. I gazed at her perfectly toned body and massive breasts. She had seemed so imposing when I had been five-foot-tall Kelly, she seemed much more delicate now that I was six-foot-tall David. I was completely captivated by this vision of womanhood. I knew that I was there as part of a plan to stop her from feeding on men, but in that moment, all I wanted was to get Astrid out of that dress and have sex with her.

I ambled over to Astrid, leaned on the counter beside her, and said, “Wow, you’re hot!”

And that clumsy opening line was exactly why, as David, I had still been a virgin at twenty-two.

Astrid turned to me and laughed the sexiest laugh I had ever heard.

“Thanks,” she said in a sultry tone of voice that sent waves of excitement into the core of me. “But why don’t you try telling me something I don’t already know?”

“Oh,” I mumbled. “Well, my name is David, and I’m in law school.”

Astrid put her hand on mine, looked into my eyes, and smiled warmly at me.

“It’s a pleasure, David,” Astrid said. “My name is Astrid. What brings a tall, dark, and handsome stud like you here tonight? Did you come to keep little old me company tonight?”

A part of me realized I was caught in Astrid’s lure and wanted to run as far away from her as I could. That part of me that deep down was still Kelly was disgusted by how badly my male body wanted to get naked with Astrid and fuck her. The part of me that was in control of my motor functions only cared about getting closer to Astrid. Who I was and why I was there meant nothing to me. I only wanted to give Astrid whatever she wanted, tell her whatever she wanted to hear.

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “I came here tonight to stop you. I know you’re a human-succubus hybrid. I know you feed on men. I can’t let you keep doing that.”

The words flowed out of my mouth even as a part of me fought to hold them back, to say anything other than the truth.

Astrid’s eyes widened for a moment. Then she threw her head back and laughed an intoxicating laugh that made my penis stiffen to attention. I wanted her so badly, even as I feared she was going to kill me.

“What are you?” she asked smiling broadly. “Another demon hunter trying to make a name for yourself?”

“No,” I answered. “I just saw what you did to that guy at the hotel the other day and I read a lot of magic books. I read about succubi in some of those books.”

“Is that so?” she said. “You’re a would-be sorcerer, are you? You read a few books on magic, cast some spells, and you think you can take on a demigod? You must feel pretty stupid about now, powerless and completely at my mercy.”
I nodded.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “I’m terrified you’re going to kill me. But I really want to fuck you.”

Astrid laughed again as she pulled me close to her and leaned her head against my shoulder. She put her hand on my chest and gently rubbed it. Then she glanced down at my crotch, where my stiff erection was on full display.

“I can see that, David,” Astrid said. “You poor fool. You have no idea how ridiculous you look right now. Over the centuries, I’ve fed on countless numbers of men, draining them dry and leaving them to die. I’ve feasted on the life force of sorcerers, warlocks, kings, great warriors, demon hunters, wizards, and beings you probably can’t even imagine. And you, a little man who reads magic books, thought you could stop me? Yes, David, tonight you’re going to die. I’m going to take you to bed, drain all your energy out of you, and you’ll probably be dead by morning. How does it feel to know you’re going to die as nothing more than a mere snack for me?”

In a calm, measured tone of voice that betrayed nothing of the horror I was feeling within, I said, “I’m panicking right now, but I can’t make my feet work to run.”

I looked out at the handful of other people in the restaurant. They were all going about their business as if nothing was amiss. Of course they were. To an outside observer who wasn’t listening in on our conversation, I was just a young man picking up a gorgeous woman at a bar. Astrid and I were practically whispering, the expression on my face was blank, and Astrid was all smiles and laughter. No one around us had any reason to suspect that Astrid was planning to kill me.

“Come on, David, let’s get out of here and get this over with,” Astrid said. “No point in delaying the inevitable.”

Struggling against Astrid’s power with all my might, I forced out the words, “I have a room at a hotel across the street. I was planning to take you there and cast a banishing spell on you.”

“A banishing spell?” Astrid said. “That’s cute, David, really. Did you find the spell on an online magic chat group or something? Well, that banishing spell isn’t going to do you any good tonight. But that hotel room makes things convenient. Let’s go.”

Astrid locked her arm with mine and held my hand as we walked out of the restaurant.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked in a tone of voice devoid of emotion. “You don’t need to kill me to feed on my energy.”

Astrid nodded.

“That’s true,” she said. “Some of my sisters allow their prey to live. They have a soft spot for mortals, I guess. Not me. I’ve been around long enough to know that sympathy isn’t worth wasting on men. I should know. I used to be one, a long, long time ago. That and, honestly, I’ve got a big appetite.”

As we entered the hotel lobby, I summoned another burst of mental strength and managed to say, “Maybe you could become a man again? Then you wouldn’t have to do this.”

Astrid laughed once more, but it wasn’t the warm, sensuous laughter she had exuded at the restaurant only moments before. This was a harsh, malevolent sound that sent chills up my spine.

“That ship has sailed,” Astrid declared. “I’d rather die than be a man again. Mortal life is nothing but a flicker of candlelight compared to the sunlight of my existence. Oh, David, you can’t begin to imagine the wonders I’ve witnessed, the experiences I’ve had, the power I possess. To be human again after all that…I’d rather die.”

We went up the elevator and I led her to the hotel room. Once we were inside, she closed the door behind us. Then she picked me up and literally threw me on the bed.

“I’m going to drain you dry, you arrogant little man,” she said as she approached the bed and began to unzip her dress. “Stop me? If you only knew! Better men than you have tried and failed. What made you think you were so special?”

As strange as this sounds, I was actually willing to die if it meant getting to have sex with Astrid. Nothing else seemed anywhere near as appealing as sleeping with her. My life seemed like a small price to pay for the opportunity. Buried deep down in my psyche as David, however, Kelly was still alive and kicking and she was extremely pissed. It was Kelly, not David, who forced the words out of my mouth.

“What makes me so special?” I said. “I’m not a man, that’s what.”

Then I recited the incantation and Astrid stopped in her tracks.

“What did you say?” Astrid asked.

“Fuck you!” Jane said as the cloaking spell wore off and she became visible and tangible standing by the door behind Astrid. “That’s what she said.”

Then Jane punched Astrid in the back of the head. Astrid fell to the ground and Jane kicked her in the ribs.

Astrid’s lure lifted and I regained control over myself. I sprang out of the bed and rushed over to Astrid. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a glass vial that I threw at Astrid. The vial shattered against Astrid’s chest, spilling a viscous purple slime all over her dress. From that slime, a tangle of thick green vines sprouted forth and began entangling Astrid in their grip. The vines continued to grow, wrapping around Astrid and constricting her. As Astrid struggled in the grip of the vines, Jane continued kicking Astrid as she wriggled on the floor.

I began to think we had managed to subdue Astrid, when she stretched out her arms and tore apart the vines that ensnared her. Once she was free of the vines, Astrid leapt to her feet.

Turning to Jane, Astrid cried, “You brought a friend! Now you’re both going to die!”

Astrid punched Jane in the chest, knocking her back several steps.

Recalling my high school football days, I lunged at Astrid and tried to tackle her to the ground. I may as well have tried to tackle a boulder. I threw all my weight into the tackle and Astrid didn’t budge an inch. Astrid stood her ground and sent me flying back to the bed with a flick of her wrist.

Ignoring me, Astrid moved toward Jane and said, “What? Are you one of those succubi who thinks draining is murder? Is that why you’re working with this wannabe sorcerer? You know, it’s one thing to be against eating men, but to turn against your sisters, that’s disgusting.”

“My sisters?” Jane said. “You turned me into a freak!”

Jane swung her fist at Astrid, who ducked out of the way with ease. Astrid threw a punch that landed in Jane’s stomach. Jane grunted in pain. Then Astrid struck Jane with an uppercut to the chin.

As Jane recoiled, Astrid said, “Don’t tell me you’re that guy I didn’t finish off! The one whose girlfriend caught us and then couldn’t get it up afterward! You should get down on your knees and thank me! There are so many men who work all their lives just for a chance to become what we are! I’ve made you a demigod!”

“Those guys are welcome to this!” Jane shrieked. “This is a nightmare!”

“A nightmare?” Astrid said. “If your girlfriend hadn’t found us and been such a cunt, you would have ended up as an hors d’oeuvre.”

“Cunt?” I yelled as I leapt onto Astrid’s back. “I’ll show you a cunt!”

I tried to gouge her eyes out, but they were as tough as the rest of her. She flung me off her back.

When I landed on the ground, I recited another incantation. A lavender bubble formed around Astrid. She tried to push through it, but was held at bay.

“Your little parlor tricks aren’t going to stop me,” Astrid said as she began punching the bubble.

Small cracks began to form in the bubble.

“Summer, drop the illusion and help us deal with this bitch!” I yelled.

The door to the hotel room burst open. Standing outside in the hallway was Summer, her arms extended above her head and her eyes closed tight, reciting an incantation in Latin.

An instant later, the illusion of the hotel room that we were standing in faded away, replaced by the sight of a vast open desert full of fine yellow sand stretching out as far as the eye could see under a crimson sky, with two dazzling blue stars and several small moons dangling overhead. The open doorway leading to the hallway in the hotel remained, suspended unnaturally a few inches above the desert sand, and Summer stood in the doorway continuing the incantation.

Astrid punched the bubble one last time, causing it to shatter like brittle glass.

As she looked around in bewilderment, Astrid said, “Hell? You lured me into Hell? Good luck keeping me here!”

Astrid charged toward me and Jane. Before she reached us, a lightning bolt darted out at her and struck her right in the chest. Astrid was flung back several feet.

I turned to see Summer standing in the floating doorway, her hand outstretched in Astrid’s direction. She had finished reciting the incantation and had hit Astrid with the lightning bolt.

“I’ve cast the binding spell, get your asses out of there!” Summer cried.

I grabbed Jane by the wrist and pulled her toward the portal out of Hell.

“Wait!” Astrid called out. “I can make you human again!”

Jane stopped dead in her tracks, and I abruptly jerked forward as my hand remained clasped to her wrist. I turned around to see Jane staring at Astrid, who was pulling herself up from the desert sand where she had fallen. Her dress was badly singed where she had been struck with the lightning bolt. I couldn’t help but think that it was a shame to have ruined such a beautiful dress.

“That’s right,” Astrid said. “I know how to turn you back into a mortal man. I’ll do it.”

“Then do it,” Jane said.

I kept tugging on Jane’s arm, trying to get her to move. It was no use. She was too strong. Her feet remained firmly planted where she stood.

“Jane, you can’t trust her,” I said. “She’s a murdering psychopath.”

Jane pulled her arm away from me.

“If you can make me human again, do it,” Jane demanded.

“I will,” Astrid promised. “I only need you to do something for me.”

“What?” Jane asked.

“Bring me that witch,” Astrid said, pointing to Summer, who stood on the threshold of the portal back to Earth. “Bring me the witch who cast the binding spell.”

“Don’t do it, Jane,” I said.

“That’s all you have to do,” Astrid said. “Bring her to me, and you’ll be a man again.”

Jane stared at Astrid for what felt like a long time.

Then, finally Jane shouted, “Fuck off!”

In one swift motion, Jane turned away from Astrid, threw me over her shoulder, and dashed toward the doorway out of Hell. As I rested on Jane’s shoulder, I looked back and saw Astrid chase after us at superhuman speed. I had once seen a cheetah at a zoo sprint across its enclosure as part of a demonstration put on by the zookeepers for the sake of visitors. I had thought at the time that the cheetah looked impossibly fast. The way Astrid moved now made that cheetah look like a slug.

Just as Astrid caught up to us, another bolt of lightning cut through the air and hit Astrid square in the face. I heard Astrid shriek as she fell back onto the desert sand.

Jane leapt through the doorway and dropped me onto the floor of the hotel hallway. Beside us, a winded Summer recited another incantation in Latin. The image of Hell, with Astrid laid out on the sand unconscious, disappeared and was replaced by the sight of a mundane two-bed hotel room not unlike the illusion Summer had cast earlier.

I got up off the ground and stood as Summer turned toward me and Jane and said in exasperation, “I…closed…the portal. It’s…over.”

Summer then closed her eyes and began to collapse to the ground. I reached out and took Summer in my arms before she hit the ground. I was worried for a moment that I wouldn’t be able to support her weight, but in my male body, lifting up a tiny girl like Summer took no effort.

A door down the hall opened abruptly and a red-haired woman in a bathrobe stuck her head out to say, “Hey, keep it down out there. People are trying to sleep.”

The red-haired woman disappeared back into her room and slammed the door behind her.

I carried Summer into the open hotel room and motioned for Jane to follow me. I lay Summer on one of the beds in the room as Jane closed the door behind us.

“What happened to her?” Jane asked.

“It takes a lot of energy for an ordinary person to summon a lightning bolt, let alone two,” I said. “On top of that, she opened and closed a portal to Hell and cast an illusion to make Hell look like a hotel room. It takes a huge toll on mortals to use that much magic. It’s no surprise she passed out.”

“I thought Summer was a witch,” Jane said. “Isn’t magic what witches do?”

“Chastity is a witch,” I said. “Summer hasn’t pledged herself to a demon or some other entity, she’s like me, she’s just an ordinary girl who knows how to use magic.”

Jane giggled.

“Honey, there’s not a damn thing ordinary about you,” Jane said with a smile. “And at the moment, there’s not much about you that’s a girl. Not that I’m complaining. I kind of prefer the new you…which, I guess, is the old you. Or the real you. Or I don’t know. This magic stuff is confusing.”

I smiled back at Jane.

“I know what you mean,” I said. “The more I learn about magic, the less sense it makes. Come on, let’s give Summer a chance to rest for a while.”

Chapter Twenty

As Summer slept a deep sleep, I sat with Jane on the other bed in the room.

“Do you really think Astrid would have turned you back into a man if you had turned Summer over to her?” I asked.

Jane sighed.

“I want to believe that,” Jane said. “I want to believe there’s a way to get back to normal. But, no, I don’t think she was telling the truth. I think she would have said anything to escape Hell. From what Summer said, it doesn’t sound like she’s going to enjoy her stay.”

“That’s true,” I agreed.

“Oh, Kelly, uh, I mean, David…or whatever…I think that if I’d actually believed Astrid could make me a man again, I would have done what she wanted,” Jane said as she planted her face in her hands. “I feel so ashamed to admit that, but it’s the truth.”

I patted Jane on the back gently.

“It’s Kelly,” I said. “David was never who I was meant to be. Being back in this body just serves to remind me of that. I was honestly never much of a man. It’s not for me. You’re the kind of person who should be a guy. As a guy, you were confident, comfortable, self-reliant, totally at ease with yourself. It was what attracted me to you. That, and the fact that you were smoking hot. I was never comfortable in my skin as David. Kelly is who I am. Who I was always meant to be. Once we tie up a few loose ends, I’m going back to being her and putting this part of my life behind me, hopefully forever.”

Jane put her hand in mine. Then she planted a kiss on my cheek.

“I think you’re an amazing person, Kelly, as a man or a woman,” Jane said. “I’m lucky to know you. Also, I’d like to point out that, when all is said and done, you saved my life. If you hadn’t cast that impotence spell after you found me with Astrid, she would have finished what she started and I would be dead right now. I may not be happy to be what I am but, like they say, where there is life, there is hope.”

I stared at Jane. It was strange to admit, but I was still in love with her. A few days before, I had been a woman in a relationship with the man of my dreams. Now I was a man, and the man of my dreams was now a woman…sort of. That didn’t change the fact that the person sitting beside me was my soulmate. I had another crazy idea.

“Jane,” I said, “I still love you. I’ve never stopped loving you. Astrid used you. What happened wasn’t your fault. Even when I thought you had betrayed me, it didn’t change how I felt about you. It just meant I didn’t think I could be with you. Knowing the truth now, I’m still sure I’m meant to be with you. I can’t be with you as Kelly. I’m not a lesbian. That’s not going to happen. But I can be with you like this. If you can learn to control your needs, maybe we can find a way to make a relationship work with me in this body.”

Tears began to flow out of Jane’s eyes.

“Do you mean that?” Jane asked. “Would you really give up your life as Kelly to be with me?”

I nodded.

“Jane, you’re my soulmate,” I said. “I would give up anything to be with you.”

“That’s the sweetest things you’ve ever said to me,” Jane said as she wrapped her arms around me.

I looked Jane in the eye for a moment, then bent forward to kiss her. We kissed for a long time.

Then I pulled off the blouse she was wearing and unclasped her bra. As I massaged her small, delicate breasts, she pulled off my jacket, undid my tie, and removed my shirt. I gently pushed her down against the bed and unbuttoned her pants, sliding them down her legs along with her underwear. Then I pulled off my own pants and the boxer shorts I was wearing.

As I spread her legs apart and positioned my erect penis over her moist womanhood, Jane gazed into my eyes and said, “This is dangerous. Do you know what you’re doing? If I can’t control myself, you could…”

I pressed a finger against her lips to silence her.

“I know what I’m doing,” I said. “This is what I want. I know this is what you want. I’m sure you’ve been wanting this for a while. Let’s allow ourselves to enjoy the moment.”

With that, I pressed my manhood against Jane’s quivering vaginal lips. She gasped as I came up against the entrance to her vagina itself. I felt immense resistance as I pushed into Jane. She was so tight down there. It felt like a strong hand was gripping my member tightly. It was delightful. I dug further into Jane, and she moaned as her muscles gave way before my assault.

This was not the first time I had sex with a woman as David. Although I had been a virgin when I first transformed into Kelly, after figuring out the transformation spell and using the djinn ring to change reality, I had briefly become David again. In that alternate reality, I had transformed a lecherous former male coworker named Hunter into a flirtatious and ditzy young woman named Tiffany as a way of getting back at him for his treatment of me as Kelly. Tiffany had no conscious recollection of her former life as Hunter, although Hunter’s personality was very much a part of her, conscious of Tiffany’s actions but powerless to do anything to control those actions. To further my revenge against Hunter, I had gotten into a relationship with Tiffany while I was David. I had slept with her several times before deciding to alter reality to become Kelly again so I could be with Johnny.

My brief experience with Tiffany had shown me that sex was physically more enjoyable for a man than for a woman. A man’s orgasm feels better than a woman’s. That said, there’s a mental component to sex that a woman experiences which a man is forever deprived of knowing. As I made love to Jane, I found the physical aspect of it thoroughly enjoyable, but the part of me that remained a woman yearned for that lost emotional component. Losing that element took a lot of the pleasure out of the sex.
It was strange to think that I had gotten laid more often as a man after my transformation into a woman than I had as a man originally. That is, twice as opposed to never.

Jane moaned with pleasure as I thrust in and out of her. I felt her suddenly tighten around me as she howled in ecstasy. I felt a certain level of smug satisfaction at the realization that I had made her orgasm. She released several more howls of pleasure before my cock spasmed and I filled her with my manly fluid.

I collapsed beside Jane in bed, a feeling of warm satisfaction washing over me. Jane nestled her face against my chest and stroked my biceps as I ran my hands over the soft skin of her back, arms, and legs, savoring the feel of her body against mine.

“Did you mean what you said?” Jane asked. “Are you going to stay like this so we can be together?”

“Of course I…” I abruptly stopped talking.

The fog I had been under had worn off. I realized what I had done, and I began to suspect why I had done it.

I loved Jane. I had loved her when she was a man, and I loved her now that she wasn’t even human. I had loved Jane when I was a woman, and I loved her now that I was in the body of a man. But I didn’t belong in a man’s body. I was a woman, had always been meant to be one, and would never be happy any other way. While my relationships with other women were sacred to me, I could never be in a romantic relationship with a woman. That just wasn’t part of who I was.

I turned to Jane and said, “Jane, I love you. I’m always going to love you. And I’m going to do everything I can to get you back to your old self. But this isn’t who I am. I can’t stay like this. Did you…did this happen because…”

“I’m sorry,” Jane said as she pulled away from me. “I didn’t mean to do this. We were sharing a moment and I…please, you have to believe me. I didn’t mean to trick you. I was being open with you and I thought you wanted this.”

I wasn’t sure what to believe. All I knew for sure was that I cared about Jane, and I didn’t want to make her situation more difficult.

“It’s…uh, it’s fine,” I said as I got out of the bed and began getting dressed.

Jane followed suit and soon we were fully clothed, staring at one another awkwardly.

“Were you able to control…to limit…you didn’t drain me, did you?” I said.

“No,” Jane assured me. “I just took a little bit. I swear. I’m starting to get a handle on how all this works. It has been an adjustment, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

I nodded.

“Uh, okay,” I said. “Let’s see how Summer’s doing.”

We both pretended as if nothing had happened as we checked on Summer.

Chapter Twenty-One

Summer woke up less than an hour after my tryst with Jane. She was exhausted from her use of magic and we practically had to carry her down to her pickup truck once we checked out of the hotel. I drove Summer’s pickup while Jane followed us in my car. We dropped Summer off at her home and stayed with her until she felt well enough to pick up Brent from her neighbor’s house where he had spent the night. Teddy was out on an interstate haul that would keep him on the road for nearly a full week.

As Summer slowly got up from her bed, she said, “Don’t get the wrong idea about what I did last night, Kelly. You know how I feel about magic. I’ve seen what it does to people. It’s like a drug, the more someone uses it, the more they want of it. I know I can’t stop you from learning about magic, but please be careful.”

“I didn’t start learning about magic as a hobby,” I said as I helped her out of bed. “My life took a weird turn the day I found that djinn. I’m not responsible for Jane meeting Astrid, either. I hate to say it, but I let the genie out of the bottle the day Mort granted my wish and transformed me into a woman. I can’t protect myself from the mystical forces of the world by pretending they don’t exist. More importantly, I promised Jane that I will keep looking for a way to make her a man again. I can’t give up on magic now.”

Summer sighed.

“I know,” she said. “Well, I’m going to try and cut down my use. But whenever you need my help, you know you can count on me.”

“Thanks, girl,” I said as I gave Summer a hug.

Although I still intended to search for a way to turn Jane back into Johnny, Jane and I were both realistic about the fact that it was going to take time. Therefore, my immediate concern after we had dealt with Astrid was getting the police to call off the investigation into Johnny’s disappearance. With Jane’s help, I came up with a plan to take care of that. I used the transformation spell to make myself look like Johnny. Then Jane and I met up with Johnny’s family and told them that, after being found cheating on me with Astrid, Johnny had gone into a deep depression and gotten extremely drunk. During that time, Johnny had met Jane, a young woman who had just returned from a year-long stay at a temple in Yucatán run by a fertility cult that practiced a unique form of transcendental meditation. The members of the temple believed that, through practicing meditation and using powerful hallucinogens, it was possible to transfer one’s consciousness into another. Jane had convinced Johnny to try it, and he had been so moved by the experience that he had decided to give all his worldly goods to charity and move to the temple in Yucatán. Johnny had just returned briefly to explain his decision to his family and say farewell. Johnny’s family was disconsolate and pled with him to disavow Jane and give up his ridiculous plan, but Johnny was committed to his path.

After meeting with Johnny’s family, we meet with Detective Miller and shared the same cover story with him. I could tell Detective Miller was suspicious, but he also had several other cases to worry about, cases with missing persons who may have been kidnapped or murdered. He didn’t have the time to worry about some crackpot who had joined a crazy cult.

There actually was a fertility cult with a temple in Yucatán. They were extremely secretive and turned away outsiders. Any attempt by Johnny’s family or the authorities to look further into his claims wouldn’t get very far. In the guise of Johnny, I did my best to dissuade them from asking questions.

The cover story established, I went home and eagerly used the transformation spell to change back into my true self. It was such a relief to be a woman again, and I hoped with all my heart I would never have to be a man again. I hated being a man and I was no good at it.

With my own identity restored, I focused on creating a new one for Jane. Despite her claims to the contrary, Erica did know some less than reputable people with special skills. She was able to help Jane obtain a fake identity, complete with counterfeit driver’s license, birth certificate, social security number, and other documentation. It was an extremely demanding and costly venture, but over the course of several weeks, we worked to create a legal existence for twenty-one-year-old Jane Navarro, a young woman from Chaparral Terrace who had just come back from spending a year abroad in Mexico. We used up what little of Jane’s cash she still had on hand and I had to dig deep into my student loans. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay for my law school tuition next semester, but I would have to worry about that later.

My roommates didn’t have any problem with letting Jane share my room in the townhouse until she could get on her feet. Unfortunately, while we could falsify academic degrees, it would have been a lot harder to falsify an employment history for Jane. While Johnny had been an engineer at an oil refinery, Jane had to settle for taking a job as a waitress at a restaurant near the townhouse called Doña Fortuna’s. As fate would have it, that was the restaurant where Johnny and I had gone on our first real date. There was a bitter irony to Jane working there, but somehow it felt like we had gone full circle.

I felt extremely fatigued for several days after we dealt with Astrid, but beyond that, there was no sign that sleeping with Jane had caused me any permanent harm. As the days passed, Jane felt more and more confident that she had gotten a handle on her abilities. To the extent that she hadn’t killed me when we slept together, I began to think she was right.

My law school dean informed the student body that Dylan had made a full recovery, but rumors made their way around campus that he was taking a leave of absence and wouldn’t return to school for a while. I tried calling him to see how he was doing, but he didn’t return any of my calls. I was glad to hear he was doing better. I only wished I I could talk to him and apologize about how I had treated him after he was seduced by Jane. Considering how much I would have to tell him to explain what had really happened, maybe it was for the best that I wasn’t able to talk to Dylan.

Jane cautiously began to feed on men, careful to only take enough of their energy to satisfy her needs but not enough to seriously hurt them. She had no trouble at all finding willing victims at bars, nightclubs, coffee shops, supermarkets, or anywhere else where men with heartbeats and functioning libidos could be found.

I had mixed feelings about Jane indulging her nature as a human-succubus hybrid. While I couldn’t maintain a relationship with her now that she was in a female body, I still had feelings for her. She was still the man of my dreams, even if she was no longer a man. It honestly hurt me to see her getting involved with other people, even if it was just sex and even if she only did it because her new mystical form required it. I hoped that, despite everything that had happened, we could maintain the deeply meaningful friendship that had formed the basis of our romantic relationship.

About a month after we had banished Astrid to Hell, Erica invited Jane, Summer, and I to her shop late one evening. Summer had been reluctant to accept the invite, so I prodded her about it until she relented and tagged along with me and Jane. I really wanted Summer and Erica to bury the hatchet.

When the three of us arrived in Summer’s pickup and parked out in front of Erica’s shop, we were surprised to find that the gold lettering over the main entrance of Erica’s shop that had read “Madam Zolga’s Occult Science Academy” had been replaced with gold lettering that read “A Touch of Magic.”

Beside the new sign was the image of a woman dressed in an outfit reminiscent of a stereotypical magician’s assistant: knee-high leather boots, fishnet stockings, a collar with an elegant bowtie around her neck, and a long tailcoat jacket unbuttoned to reveal a pair of briefs below a white corset. The woman held a wand in her right hand which she pointed at an upturned top hat she held in her left hand. There was a playful smile stretched across the woman’s face, and one of her eyes was winking.

Summer looked at me and said, “A little too lively for Erica’s taste, don’t you think?”

“People change,” I said as I walked toward the front door.

“Don’t we know it,” Jane said.

Jane and Summer followed me into the store, where we found Erica pouring champagne into four glasses laid out on the counter beside the cash register.

“Felt like we needed a change, did we?” I said as I approached Erica.

Erica smiled.

“A change worked wonders for all three of you,” Erica said as she set the champagne bottle on the counter. “You’re just in time.”

“In time for what?” Summer asked.

“Consider this a grand reopening of sorts,” Erica said as she motioned for us to take the glasses. “I’ve thought about the way the three of you have changed my perspective on what I do to earn a living. Magic is more than just a skill or an art form. Studying and teaching magic is a calling, an important one. Magic can change our lives for the better or for the worse. The knowledge I sell comes with an obligation to be socially responsible, to consider how one’s actions may affect others. I’m going to approach my calling with a new philosophy. From now on, I’m not just in this business to make a quick buck, as they say. I’m going to make a concerted effort to help those who cross my path who may be in need of some help. Also, I’ve decided to take some advice a couple of friends recently gave me and give my store a trendier name.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Summer said as she picked up a glass. “I’ve made it clear to all of you that I have my issues with magic, but if you’re going to practice magic, I think that’s the right attitude to have about it. And I like the new name. Sounds classy.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Jane said as she grabbed a glass.
“Hear! Hear!” I said lifting up my own glass.

Erica raised her glass high and said, “Ladies, a toast. To new beginnings.”

“To new beginnings,” we all echoed.

We drank the champagne.

“Speaking of new names, maybe you girls should give your little group a name,” Erica suggested. She thought for a moment before saying, “How about the Former-Boys Club?”

I exchanged sour looks with Jane and Summer.

“I’m not a fan,” I said. “We can brainstorm suggestions later after we’ve drank more champagne.”

The girls laughed.

As we continued enjoying the champagne, the door to the shop opened and the bell hanging above the door rang. A young auburn-haired woman in a cream-colored long-sleeved knit top blouse, teal knee-length skirt, and a pair of flats walked inside. She had a troubled expression on her face.

The young woman looked at us and said, “Excuse me, but I was wondering if someone could help me with an unusual problem I’m having.”

I glanced at Erica, Summer, and Jane. All three of them stared back at me. I set down my glass of champagne and turned to the woman.

“I think you came to the right place.”