It's good to see the nifty archive back on line. I see you picked up my first tg story, Bobbi McGee. I'm gratified that you thought it of suf- ficient quality. There are plenty of typos in the version that appeared in the newsgroup, though, so I thought that I'd offer you a corrected draft. I hope you've seen and have liked my more recent stories at alt.sex.stories.tg. When I have had time to correct their texts, I'll forward copies along for your consideration. By the way, if this is not the new ms submission address for the archive, I do apologize. I've scanned your page and can't find any other one to use for this specific purpose. TG Repost: BOBBI MCGEE WARNING: This story contains explicit sexual descriptions. If you are under 18 this article is not intended for your consumption and should not be read by you. BOBBI McGEE by Christopher Leeson Rob's balls ached with desire. He felt Dori take his cock all the way into her tender mouth and begin to bob her head up and down, her velvety lips caressing every inch of his throbbing organ. As she did so, the young realtor burrowed his nose into her bubble bath-scented vagina and captured the ripe, erect, bud of her clitoris between his teeth. He sucked it into his mouth, exciting the sensitive tissue with his teeth while he flicked the tip of his tongue back and forth against her clit. "Uuhh," Dori moaned, the cry of pleasure muffled by the large, surging penis in her mouth. He knew that his teeth on her stem of passion were driving her wild. She wrapped both hands around Rob's thick shaft at the base and held it tightly as she ran it in and out of her mouth. Her entire body was quaking; the superheat between her legs had reached a point where she felt that she was actually sitting on a hot seat. No matter how she wiggled and squirmed, the temperature continued building and building. The pores of her flesh opened and her body was suddenly covered with a glistening coat of perspiration. She pressed her lips against Rob's pulsing shaft and felt the rushing blood pound faster through his organ. Her hips began bouncing on his face, causing his nose to penetrate her vagina, which sent a thrill through her every nerve. His hips suddenly began to jerk. Dori felt the first jet of his sperm splashed against her inner cheek. Then her mouth was flooded with the thick, heavy juice. The hot semen oozing into her throat triggered a series of rockets that jetted scorching fire along the artery ways of her warmly quivering body. . . . Suddenly the doorbell chimed. With a curse, Rob lifted his head from Dori's pussy and rolled over. "Keey-rist!" he panted. "That's timing for you." Dori swallowed hard and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. "Get rid of them and get back to me, would you?" "I'll just be a minuet, doll," Rob promised, rising wearily. He dried his face with a tissue, threw on his plaid robe, and then hurried out the bedroom door. In just a minute he was back, carrying a small package in a brown wrapper. "Who was it?" asked Dori. "A twenty-four hours delivery service." "What did you get? Who sent it?" "There's no return address. Rob sat down at the edge of the bed and started tearing off the wrapping paper. Dori nestled up behind him and rested her chin on his hard shoulder. "Well, well, well," he muttered. "Cute." Dori frowned. It was some sort of primitive female sculpture, naked except for a strange headdress. No wonder Rob liked it. He always did admire big breasts, she knew, and she had gotten the idea that even her B-cups were too small for his sense of aesthetics. As Rob turned the thing around Dori observed that it was two-faced; a male figure was cast behind the female one. Dori knew immediately which side her man would be setting outward for viewing! He was a horny guy, but he was hers! "-- Look, here's a card," Rob said, plucking a piece of paper from the box. "`To Rob with hate. Cassandra.' I never thought I'd hear that name again." "Who's Cassandra?" asked Dori suspiciously. "Nobody. -- She and I used to live together, that's all. It ended badly." "You never mentioned her!" "Why should I? I know what a jealous woman you are." "She was nobody? Just a live-in girl friend? Who am I? Nobody plus one, or two, or three, or five?" "Listen, baby, how do you think I got to be so good in bed if this was strictly amateur hour?" "So you DID have a lot of girls before you met me!" "I've always been popular, so sue me! Dori, don't be a pain." "Pain?! I just want some respect." "Baby bottom, you're going nuts over nothing! Settle down." I don't like the idea of old girl friends sending you gifts! Does it say that she's going to be visiting?" "I told you what it said! For crying out loud, Dori, give me some credit. I've only had eyes for you!" "You've only known me a month. Who will it be next month?" "Honey!" "I must have been crazy to think that what we had was something special." "It is -- sort of!" "Sort of?! That does it! Let your old girl friend know there's a vacancy. I'm quitting the fan club!" Dori scrambled from the bed. Rob didn't say anything. There was nothing he could say when she was in one of her snits. He watched her pull on her clothes with a speed never seen before. Once dressed in the same peasant blouse and miniskirt that she had worn earlier to the restaurant (a get up that made her look more like a cocktail waitress who was loafing rather than a customer to be served), she started emptying the drawers and stuffing her cheap plastic- over-cardboard suitcases. Rob might have sweet-talked her, but he knew that Dori was prone to flare-ups and sudden mood-changes. The best thing for the girl was a little breathing space. After all, he hadn't done anything wrong, except live a life of his own before he had met her. The little brunette could walk out of his life if she wanted to, or stay, but, either way, he didn't see any reason to beg. Leaving Dori alone to finish her packing, Rob shuffled out to the kitchen and turned on the radio. It was set to the oldies channel that Dori liked so well and just then they were playing a familiar tune: "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. . . ." That was Janis Joplin's "Bobbie McGee," a song that he had always enjoyed. But right now the lyrics depressed him. They were about a great relationship that just couldn't hold together for the long term. It reminded Rob of all his own relationships with women. The next song was Frank Sinatra's "I Could Write a Book." I bet you could, you old Mafiosi, Rob chuckled as he went to the refrigerator and broke open a beer. By the time he finished it, Dori was coming out of the bedroom, loaded down with suitcases and even paper bags full of her wash-and-wear things. As she stormed past him, Rob noticed an article fall from one of her precariously-held bags and plop down on the kitchen floor. "Dori!" he said. She turned angrily. "Don't plead with me to stay, Rob!" "I wouldn't. I think we both need some space, but you dropped --" "Ooh, men! Listen, Rob, I'll give you so much space that you'll never see me again!" With that final pronouncement, Dori stomped out the back door and Rob heard her footsteps on the stairs which led down to the residents' garage where her Toyota was parked. "Women!" he sighed. Well, he consoled himself, she had stayed longer than most. No big deal. She couldn't cook as well as Rob could himself, and was a worse house-keeper, too. The young man got up from his chair and plucked the fallen object from the tiles. It was just a skimpy pair of blue denim cut-offs. Rob shook his head. He had always gotten a charge out of seeing Dori's tight bottom filling her shorts to capacity. This pair was so small that the lush curves of her lower buttocks were left bare -- a glory to see. He tossed the shorts on top of the counter indifferently. Unlike some males, Rob didn't get excited about women's clothes -- unless, that is, they were filled with a woman who could do them justice. The night's fun and games had tired Rob out and he padded sleepily back to the bedroom. The moment he stepped in the door he noticed the two-faced idol lying on the covers. His curiosity renewed, he picked it up. The face on either side of it had little gem eyes and he wondered if it was valuable or just some cheap import. There was an inscription on its bottom which looked very much like the writing that he had seen in the occasional foreign-language newspaper from India. Rob couldn't help wondering why Cassandra had sent him the thing. She had known her as a graduate student in anthropology, of course, but Rob was more into sports cars and had never talked to her about her favorite subject. Their sex had been hot, but they had nothing much in common, and her strident feminism eventually turned him off. With one breath Cassandra would be expressing the superiority of woman, and with the next she was complaining that she hadn't been born a man. He wished he could understand women. Men never went around wishing they were female -- at least the sort of men Rob felt comfortable with didn't. What was the big deal anyway? he wondered. Whatever sex you were, the sensible person accepted it and enjoyed it for all that it was worth. The one thing he which he had really liked about Dori was that she seemed to have a hell of a good time with being a girl. Too bad that her peeves and snits always drove him up the wall. I just wish that I could find my perfect match, Rob thought. He was getting more than a little tired of these affairs that never seemed to turn into anything deep or meaningful. Why couldn't he have a relationship like the one his parents had? Up until the terrible accident that had taken their lives, they had enjoyed a wonderful partnership. Rob was beginning to think that he had a lousy taste in women. Or was it something in his personality, some quirk in him that attracted women for a little while, but then drove them away? Rob knew he was in a rut -- and not for the first time he found himself wishing that he could get out of it somehow. He shook his head. How could he? He was what he was. It would probably take a miracle to change a quality so fundamental to his character. But he couldn't help but wonder what comprised the happiness that some lucky couples found with one another but which was denied to him? Common interests, he thought, trust, sharing, and patience? Kindness, forgiveness, and respect? And he shouldn't leave out friendship. Of all the women he had known, not one real friend stood out among them. That was a sad commentary. It all had seemed so simple when Rob had been a hormonal teenager. Then he had supposed that a lot of high-quality screwing would bring happiness. Well, as a jaded veteran he had learned that the merchandise wasn't bad, but it was no happiness pill either. He put the idol on the nightstand with the female-side out, intending to admire it later in the morning light, then threw off his robe and slipped under the covers. Rob was dead to the world in a just few minutes. As the young man lay half-asleep, he dreamed he was fondling Dori's breast. It felt larger than he remembered. When he touched Dori's boob, he thought he could feel his own fingers playing teasingly upon it. When he opened his blurry eyes to the early dawn's light, he saw Dori's breasts, but the odd thing was that he couldn't see Dori at all -- just her breasts. "God, what a dream!" he muttered. His chest started itching as he lay there, but when he scratched himself he felt soft, tender mounds of flesh which were hurt by his nails as if they were his own. He grimaced; he just couldn't seem to get out of that lucid dream about women's breasts. Just then his sleepy fingers went to his groin, which was also itching. Instead of his scrotum, he found there a wooly patch occupying an emptiness where his well-oiled equipment always had parked. What the hell? he wondered. Then he understood. He was dreaming that he was a woman! Kinky, he chuckled. Rob couldn't recall ever having had such a dream before. On impulse, he decided to go look at himself in the dream mirror. Robert Wescott as a woman, he supposed in his sleep-drugged state, should be something to see. The nearly somnambulant Rob staggered to the full-length mirror and he wasn't disappointed. A slim girl with long, soft honey-blond curls looked back at him from the glass. She looked like a healthy and athletic sort of miss, as if she swam and ran a lot, just like Rob did himself. Her breasts were nicer than Dori's -- not as big Dolly Parton's, of course, but would have done credit to Christy Brinkley. The reflected girl had a nest of light brown pubic hair that almost hid the pursed lips of her pussy. Her waist was narrow, Rob noted, but her hips were becomingly round. Rob touched his buttocks and saw the girl's hands go behind her also, mimicking him perfectly. The girl's derriere felt full and hard, just the sort of backside that he loved most to fondle. The girl in the glass smiled with pleasure. Both fondling and being fondled felt very good. Intrigued by the heightened sensitivity of his dream-body, Rob reached forward and stroked his pussy lightly. One touch of its sensitive labia sent something like an electric shock coursing through his body. The pleasure of it made him shudder. An amazing dream, Rob thought, but one so intriguing that he didn't want it to end just yet. He carefully studied the girl's oval face with its pert little chin. If she looked familiar it was because she looked so much like him. The angles of her cheeks and jaw were soften by her feminine sex, however, and they framed a prettily turned-up nose and a pair big robin-egg blue eyes with long lashes. Her lips were so full and sensual that they reminded Rob of his mother's when she was young. The young man grinned as he sleepily considered the experience. If he had been unfortunate enough to be born a girl, it might not have been quite so intolerable as he might have imagined had Mother Nature graced him with the gentle beauty of the girl in the mirror. Rob yawned. Standing there so long had made him weak in the legs; he had to lie down or fall. So, forgetting the strange dream, he wobbled over to the bed and plopped down. He was out cold as soon as his face hit the pillow. The seven o'clock alarm bell work Rob fully. He yawned and rubbed his chest. Then Robert Wescott yelled in horror. # Wrapped tightly in his robe, Rob paced back and forth across the kitchen floor. It hadn't been a dream! He had been really looking at himself in the mirror. Somehow -- by some incredible somehow -- he had turned into a girl during the night! Things like this happened in stupid movies, he knew, but not in reality. He had lately watched a weird one called SYNAPSE -- about a male-to-female brain transplant and a lot of automatic weapons combat. He also remembered that video cassette that Cassandra had once brought home. It was called SWAT or STITCH, or something like that. It starred Perry King, who God turned into Ellen Barkin for having treated women so shabbily. But Perry's character had had to die before he was zapped with a female shape, while Rob knew that he was still alive. At least, he thought he was. Suddenly he remembered the statuette in the bedroom. Cassandra! Now it all started making some sense. When he knew her she had already been getting into primitive fertility magic studies and that Mother Goddess stuff. In fact, she had even done research among those crazy Wicca cultists. That was it! Cassandra had cursed him! She had found a magic idol and cursed him with it. In fact, maybe she had even used it on herself first, considering her silly male-envy. Was there now man named Cass wandering around? Rob hoped never to run into the bum -- without a gun in his hand, at least! "I've got to see a doctor -- fast!" he -- or rather, she -- muttered to herself. Rob ran back into the bedroom and threw on her much-too-large male pants, shirt, and shoes. The hapless young woman walked right out of her size-twelve loafers at her very first step. Damn! she thought, I can't go outside looking like this. I need women's clothes, at least until I get to the hospital. Maybe Dori left something behind that'll fit this stupid body! Rob, her heart pounded in her throat, rushed to the closet hoping to find a pair of jeans and a shirt that she could wear without embarrassment. The closet was empty, as were the drawers. Dori didn't leave much of anything behind, just a little cloth purse with nothing in it but lint; it had fallen behind Rob's tennis shoes and been overlooked in her haste. Then the girl got the idea to check the clothes hamper and, sure enough, Dori had missed something. Rob found an orange halter top and a pair of panties. The clothes from the bottom of the hamper had a sweaty, musky scent, but Rob wasn't worrying about that as she put them on. She was able to get into the halter fairly easy since Rob had watched lots of girl friends dressing. To her annoyance, the halter seemed too snug to be comfortable. Then the young woman realized that she actually had boobs bigger than Dori's! That was incredible! She could go out barefoot, but didn't want to. Suddenly remembering having seen Dori's sandals under the bed a couple days earlier, she got down on her hands and knees to have another look. Sure enough, they were still there. Rob now had some footgear! But the bikini top and panties weren't enough to cloth her decently. Just then Rob remembered that pair of cut-offs back in the kitchen. Without pausing for breath, she ran to get the denim shorts. With the cut-offs in hand again, she felt a twinge of dismay. They were so skimpily cut! Why did Dori have to be such a bimbo? In Rob's state of mind she had forgotten how much Dori's lack of fashion sense had excited her as male. It was the brassy way with which she presented herself in public that had first caught her -- then his -- eye. At first Rob had wondered if the girl so willing to show off so much in public was a hooker in the wrong neighborhood. But she wasn't. Dori was something better. An honest woman who fulfilled a man's fantasies about bad girls. Realizing she had no choice, Rob climbed into the cut-offs and found that she had to exhale hard to get the snaps closed. Apparently her remolded hips were a size or two wider than Dori's. If the shorts were tight on their owner, they were less than a second skin on Rob. Though now dressed as well as she could be, Rob felt like she was standing around in underwear -- and girl's underwear at that! Her cleavage was pushed up by the constraint of the halter and the panties weren't designed to be worn with shorts so sparing and they showed. Dori had always worn little thong panties with shorts so teensy. Rob stuffed the visible hems of her panties up under the tight denim and then went to get her wallet and keys. As she fumbled them out of the drawer, she realized that the pockets of her cut-offs were much too tight for her to put anything into them. Women always had a pocket problem, she remembered, and they solved it by carrying purses. Resourcefully, Rob seized Dori's forgotten purse and stuffed the wallet and keys inside it. Then, as an afterthought, she put the magic statuette in along with them. Maybe the hospital could have it analyzed and find the antidote. Finally, Rob hurried down to the residents' garage, got into her Dodge Avenger, hastily readjusted the seat forward, and started the engine. # Trembly and preoccupied, Rob almost had an accident in the morning traffic, but she finally managed to get to the hospital parking ramp safely. Without pausing to lock the doors, the distraught girl raced into the emergency room. "I've got to s-see a doctor!" she stammered to the receptionist. The middle-aged woman regarded the dishabilled girl coolly and asked, "What's the problem?" "I'm under a curse!" "A what?" "A curse! I've been changed!" "What do you mean you've been changed?" "I -- I'd rather save that news for the doctor." "Do you wanted to see our staff psychiatrist?" "I'm not crazy! I want to see the doctor who knows the most about breaking curses!" As distraught as she was, Rob realized that she wasn't making much sense. But who else should she ask for? A gynecologist? "Maybe we should start you out with a family medicine practitioner," the receptionist suggested. "What's your insurance company?" "Metro Group Health," Rob answered, frustrated by the way hospitals did business. She dug deeply into her wallet to find her medical services card. The receptionist took the plastic rectangle from her shaking hand and frowned. "This is a card for a Robert Wescott." Rob thought quickly. "Ah, he's my husband. We have the family plan." "No you don't. This card says `individual only.' Do yo have any other means of paying, Miss?" She wanted to scream, to shriek to the world that she was Robert Wescott, but who would believe that a pretty girl wearing an overstuffed halter and a pair of flirtatious cut-offs had a grown man hidden inside her? Anyway, people were watching, listening. Rob didn't want anyone to know who she was. It was just too humiliating. The blonde checked her wallet for cash. She -- then he -- had shown Dori a good time at dinner the night before. There wasn't more than a few dollars left. "I've got a credit card," she gasped in agitation. The receptionist took the card patiently, but again had to frown. "This is your husband's, my dear. We can't accept your card unless you can prove that you're really Mrs. Wescott. Do you have a picture ID?" Rob was so distressed that she wasn't thinking at all well. She fumbled inside her wallet again, saying, "Sure I've got a driver's license!" She pulled out the license and shoved it in front of the woman. The receptionist sighed wearily. "No, Miss, we can't use Mr. Wescott's license. We have to see yours." "I guess -- I guess I forgot it," Bobbi mumbled hopelessly. Now she was getting frightened. In another moment they'd be accusing her of having stolen some man's wallet and trying to use his health plan and credit card illegally. If she got arrested, what could she say? "I hope you can get home without being arrested," the receptionist remarked. "What?!" Rob cried out, as if her mind had been picked of its most terrible anxiety. "You don't have your own license on you. Drive carefully." Rob shuddered as the horror sank in. She couldn't prove who she was, but still had to get help. If she didn't get a vaccination for this terrible condition soon, it might go too far -- and might even become permanent! "Can't you put me on welfare, then. I -- I'm terribly sick!" The receptionist took another look and felt sorry for the pretty, but naughtily-clad and very messed-up waif. She suspected that the little blonde was on drugs. Well, that was nothing new. Every year the emergency room got hundreds of cases of people who had put all their money up their arm or up their nose. They were a terrible burden on the system, but they had to be taken take care of, even if the taxpayer had to foot the bill. "All right honey, we'll see what we can do. What's your name?" "Ah -- R-Rob --" "Excuse me?" "Ah, Bobbi! -- Bobbi Wescott." "What is your Social Security number, Bobbi," she asked in a subdued voice, trying not to set off the distraught girl. "I'll find it," Bobbi stammered as she looked for her card. Then she stopped suddenly. It would have the Robert Wescott name on it, too. Showing it would just compound her problems. "Please, I don't need any more questions, Miss." She began to sob. "I need help!" # Finally she got to see a doctor. He suspected drugs and checked for them. While he did so, she tried to explain her transformation calmly and clearly to him, but only convinced the physician that she was delusional. He prescribed valium and made her an appointment with a hospital psychiatrist. By that time Bobbi had steadied herself enough to appear rational to the untutored eye. Leaving the hospital, Bobbi realized that medical science couldn't help her. Scientists didn't understand magic. She guessed that she would have to see a witch. But how did one find a practicing warlock? she wondered. They didn't advertise in the phone book. There was an occult book store downtown, the girl suddenly remembered. Maybe she could ask the clerks there for a lead. Bobbi drove home without mishap and, used up, emotionally spent, she put her key into the lock. She just wanted to get into bed, to cover up her head and cry herself empty. Much to her surprise, the door only opened a couple inches; the security chain was set. As she shook the door in frustration, Dori stepped into view. "Dori! You're back!" cried Bobbi. "You're damned right I'm back!" Dori snarled through the crack. "Who in hell are you and what are you doing with Rob's key?" "Damn it Dori, I live here!" What do you mean you live here? That bastard sure didn't waste any time replacing me, did he! Well, I'm going to fight for my man! Take a hike, bitch!" "No, Dori, you don't understand!" Dori was opening the door. "I understand, all right, you little tramp! Rob thinks you're moving in with him! Well, he's got another thing coming! Give me those keys! You'll stay in this apartment over my dead body!" Dori shoved Bobbi hard against the wall and grabbed at her keys. Dori's strength seemed incredible! Being manhandled by a sleek girl like Dori so shocked Bobbi that she defended herself very poorly; she couldn't prevent the keys from being torn from her nerveless grasp. Then the Dori stormed back into the apartment, slammed the door shut, and threw the deadbolt. "Let me in, you stupid slut!" Bobbi yelled, beating on the panel with her tender fists. "At least give me back my car keys!" "Your car keys? They've got Rob's name on them and they're for his Dodge! Get out of here, or I'll call the police!" Bobbi slumped back against the wall, overwhelmed. Locked out of her apartment, her car keys lost, having almost no money, barely dressed, she realized now that she didn't even have an identity. The girl suddenly grasped that her problem wasn't just facing life as a woman, it was a matter of basic survival -- food, shelter, clothing! She shuddered. What a heartless revenge Cassandra had taken upon her! Sure, Rob had told her that he had had his fill of her nutty ideas and had ordered her out of his life -- but this was too much retribution. It was like shooting a person in the heart for taking someone's potato chip. Black despair overcame the young woman and a ghastly image flashed before her inner mind -- an image of herself standing on a high bridge ready to jump, hopelessness and horror snatching at her from behind, death and darkness waiting to receive her up ahead. I don't want to die, she thought desperately. Jim! He's my best friend. He'll know who I am! He'll help me! # The door to Jim's apartment opened slowly. A face that wasn't Jim's appeared, saying, "Well, hello! What can I do for you?" Bobbi recognized Rona Spears. In fact, she knew that this had always been Rona's apartment -- it had been Jim who had moved in with her. "Am I glad somebody's home!" Bobbi jabbered. " -- Listen, I'm Bobbi, uh, McGee, a friend of Robert Wescott. I wanted to stay with Rob while I'm visiting the city, but, uh, he's not in town. So I thought about Jim and you. Rob said that you were such good friends of his. Is it okay?" Rona sized up the girl. Yes, she looked just like the type that Rob Wescott would be interested in. In fact, maybe his taste was improving. There was a natural charm to this young miss. The business woman sensed a vulnerability in Bobbi McGee that called out something benign and sisterly from deep inside her. "Any friend of Rob's is a friend of ours," she said pleasantly. "I'm afraid that Jim is seeing clients in Sacramento and won't be back until tomorrow night. You can stay here until either he or Rob shows up." "That's great, Rona!" "Don't mention it, Bobbi." Just then Rona caught the scent of her guest's musty clothing and perspiration. "Did you walk all the way here from Rob's?" "Yes, I wanted to save the cab fare." Rona stood aside to let Bobbi enter. "Well, why don't you freshen up with a shower? Do you have an overnight bag?" "Ah, no. It was stolen from the cart at the bus station," Bobbi lied agilely. "Damn, this city!" Rona commiserated. # A half hour later found Bobbi resting upon a stuffed chair. Now wearing a pair of Rona's jeans and a shirt, it felt so good to be out Dori's mix-and-match bimbo outfit. The shower, too, been restorative, but touching her strange new body was hard for Bobbi. She had kept her eyes closed through the whole bath. Rona stepped back into the room wearing a dress suit and a sting tie. "Well, Bobbi, I hate to leave, but I have a dinner engagement with an important client." "You'd leave me here alone? A stranger?" "It's obvious that you know Rob very well. Somehow, I don't think anyone with such sad, gentle eyes could be a thief. And, besides, there's something about you that makes me feel like I know you already." "You won't be sorry," Bobbi promised gratefully. Left alone, Bobbi grew a little restless as the afternoon wore on. She got up and paced about the apartment, already very familiar to her from her -- then his -- earlier visits. She took a Diet Coke, made a salami, sandwich and found that just one filled her up. Maybe a smaller body meant a smaller appetite. That's good, she thought -- lower grocery bills. Then she wandered over to the full-length mirror. "Look at you!" Bobbi rebuked her own reflection. "What a sight you are!" She folded her arms over the swollen front of her shirt and cast a troubled glance out the window. "How long am I going to be like this? Forever?" Screwing up her courage, Bobbi regarded her reflection yet again. This time she nodded grudgingly, saying, "You're good-looking, I'll grant you that!" The young woman's curiosity at last got the better of her. She took off her shirt and studied herself carefully. Rona's clothes fitted very well, Bobbi had discovered, but, like Dori's, Rona's bra was just too snug. In fact, the discomfort was enough to prompt the new-minted girl to take it off entirely. Now bare to the waist, Bobbi cupped her bra-pinched breasts in her hands and massaged the soreness away. "I really grew a big crop of America's best last night," she chuckled sadly. Were they hers for keeps? Was there any way to break the magic spell? How long did spells last if you didn't break them? She tried to think of all the stories she had read about magic, all the movies she had seen. The Shaggy Dog had to do something brave and heroic to become a boy again, she recalled. The Frog Prince had to get a princess to kiss him. The Beast had to make Beauty love him. Bobbi grinned, enjoying the idea of being kissed by Princess Di and being restored to gorgeous manhood in her arms. But it wasn't a practical solution. The blonde put her hands on her hips and tilted her head from side to side. If I'm stuck as a girl for any time at all, Bobbi thought, I've got to earn a living. How do I do that? I can't even prove I have a high school diploma now. Maybe I could become a model. Bobbi fantasized herself in a bikini and leaning sexily against a red Nissan 240SX, or a glossy black Acura Integra upon the cover of some future issue of SPORTS CAR. Not much hard work in modeling, she thought; wearing a bikini in public would be the roughest part. But then she reconsidered. Fat chance! Those jobs were hard to get. Every model that she had known as Rob had at one time or other complained that she had had to sleep with somebody to get a shot at the worthwhile assignments. Bobbi winced. The idea of sleeping with a man was decidedly unpleasant, even if it meant earning a good living. Now that she was a girl, Bobbi wondered if it meant that she liked boys. She called up a large image of Fabio in her mind's eye and decided that it didn't to a thing for her. But Cindy Crawford - -- ahh, that was a body to set her heart strings strumming! But could Bobbi thrill Cindy as she was now? Maybe; she had heard some of the tabloid stories about the supermodel. Be that as it may, Bobbi could console herself that plenty of girls were willing sleep with other girls. Especially girls like the one in the mirror. I need a drink, she thought, if I'm ever going to sort this thing out. Damn, what if Jim won't believe me? What then? Bobbi went over to the liquor cabinet and poured herself a Scotch and soda. As she consumed the hard liquor, she felt depressed. Rob had worked very hard at building a career in real estate. Now it was lost. As Bobbi she might have to start all over again. Well, there were plenty of female realtors, and though the feminists among them might whine and feel sorry for themselves, the average customer related well to the feminine style of salesmanship. The women in the business did well on the whole, as long as they applied themselves as vigorously as a man. In fact, it was at a realtor's convention where Rob had first met Rona, and there discovered that they both lived in the same city. The two of them were friendly from the start, but they had never quite made it into bed together. It was Jim's heart -- or loins - -- that Rona had set on fire when Rob introduced them. Rob didn't really resent the way things had worked out, since he thought that Rona would be good for his friend and, besides, Rob's hands were full just then with a postal worker named Charlotte who liked to lick whipped cream off his bare feet. Bobbi sighed. Those were the good old days. Were the really gone forever? What could she replace them with? The small blonde downed the rest of her drink, and then tackled a second. How strangely and how suddenly her fate had changed! she thought. She suddenly got worried that this experience was some sort of punishment -- from Heaven, not just from the weird and vindictive Cassandra. Was it possible that Cassandra might actually have been acting -- unwittingly -- as Heaven's agent? Bobbi decided that it couldn't be. Rob never hurt women. In fact, he had made scores of women very happy - -- for a while. At least he had never committed the big faux pas and gotten one of them pregnant. That is, he never knew for certain that any of his girls were pregnant when split-up time arrived. She checked herself, supposing that in another minute she'd be feeling guilty for absolutely nothing. Damn it, birth control was a woman's problem anyway! Birth control. That was a strange thought under the present circumstances. Bobbi had become a woman herself and so she suddenly wondered, with a strangely-melded sense of alarm and amazement, whether this new-edition body of hers could conceive a child. Motherhood. Imagine that! She looked down at herself and touched her small, slightly convex belly. Could it happen? If it could, what should she think about it? Bobbi remembered how the tough gang boss trapped in Kathy Duffy's body in SYNAPSE had finally achieved a happy ending by becoming a loving wife and the proud mother of a little boy. And in Ellen Barkin's movie, too, the character had had a baby. But she had tragically died in childbirth. That was such a sad scene, Bobbi remembered -- and it was supposed to have been a comedy! Very tipsy now, she felt the tickle of tears rilling down her cheeks. A sudden rush of sadness made her sniffle, and then beagin to shake with sobs. The thought of Ellen's little girl growing up without a mother to love her seemed an idea so awful that the young woman tried as hard as she could not to think about it. She finished her drink to steady her nerves. Once she had released her pent-up emotions Bobbi felt much better. She mopped away her tears with the backs of her hands. The crying had stuffed up her nose, so she blew it in a napkin. The girl considered whether she needed another drink and decided that she did. A little later, staggering drunk, Bobbi wobbled into the bedroom and clumsily stripped off her jeans. She didn't actually mean to shed the panties along with them, but her thumbs had gotten into their waistband and so she dragged them off, too. As she fell into bed, Bobbi's forehead struck her purse and it hurt. "Damned idol," she muttered as she rolled over and dug the thing from the handbag. Seeing the statuette again gave Bobbi a sudden idea. If it had changed her sex once just by sleeping near it, maybe it would change her back if she repeated the process. "I'll just put this little doodad beside the bed here," she slurred, "and maybe it'll turn me into a man by morning. Fight magic with magic! What have I got to lose?" As she settled the statuette upon the nightstand, she noticed a bottle of perfume sitting there next to the lamp. Its label read "Magic Midnight." Bobbi had always loved the scent of perfume on beautiful women. With a crooked smile, she fumbled the bottle open to take a whiff. She found its odor wonderfully sensuous but, unfortunately, the girl's quaking fingers dropped the bottle on her lap, not spilling much, but tossing several powerfully aromatic droplets into her pubic hair and across her bare thighs. Bobbi recapped the bottle hastily, then turned off the lamp and fell into a deep sleep. # Jim Cardwell opened the bedroom door quietly. He was a tall, clear-eyed man with dark hair and a strong jaw. The Japanese investors he had gone to Sacramento to see had cut their series of meetings short due to a banking emergency back home. That had left Jim with nothing to do other than catch an evening return flight. "Rona? Are you awake?" he whispered. He heard a woman's deep breathing and her wordless murmuring. "No, she's sleeping." The young investment broker sniffed the sweetened air. It was his favorite perfume, Magic Midnight. Rona always wore it to make him hot to trot! Grinning with anticipation, he began to strip off his clothes. Jim hadn't cheated on Rona since he had known her, though he had been sorely tempted just the night before. The Japanese had held an extravagant party at the Imperial Hotel with all the amenities provided. Jim had let the opportunity to make it with a high-class call girl pass, though, because his old free-and-easy ways had always brought him grief in the past and, besides, he cared about Rona and wanted what they had to work out. But his near miss with infidelity had made him very anxious to get back to Rona's side. Now that he had caught scent of her, those feelings were rushing back into his id with powerful urgency. He would either have to plunge into a very cold shower or into some very hot action. With Rona and him in the same bedroom, the idea of taking a shower came in a very poor second. Jim softly approached the bed. Sitting down beside the one whom he thought was his girl friend, he grouped in the dark and touched her slowly rising and falling boobies. He smiled; if anything, they felt even larger than he remembered them to be. Funny the tricks that the memory can play! he thought. Jim sucked in an excited breath as he stroked Bobbi's breasts. She stirred, but didn't wake. Jim, trying not to disturb her sleep, checked her for panties; she was wearing none. He slipped his own briefs to the floor, tossed them aside, and positioned himself on the bed above the girl. He took hold her hips to steady them, then, as he moved his face closer, Jim discovered that "Rona" had used perfume on her pubic hair. To him that meant that the little mix had been hoping that he'd find a way to come home early and had decked herself out like a carnal feast so that not a second would be wasted. What a woman! He flicked his tongue against the outer lips of Bobbi's pussy. The sleeper shifted and moaned, but her alcohol-reenforced slumber was a heavy one. Jim chuckled quietly as he moved his mouth to her breasts, licking the nipples as if they had they been dabbed with honey. Bobbi groaned and shifted a bit as the sharp tickling sensation penetrated her deep sleep. The young man's cock was now swollen and aching. He knew that there wouldn't be much time for foreplay, so he took the woman passionately in his arms and kissed her hard on the lips. "Whaa --?!" Bobbi mumbled as she awoke to feel her mouth and nose smothered under something wet. "Easy, Rona. It's Jim. I just got back. I need you, baby." "J-Jim?" the girl muttered confusedly. But Jim wasn't listening, he just kept on kissing her face and neck, using all the techniques that he had developed over twenty-six years of living free. He opened his mouth and captured on of her large, erect nipples between his hungry lips. Jim sucked first on one and then on the other. He pressed his face into her smooth, resilient breasts, firm with the golden kiss of youth. "M-My God!" muttered Bobbi. Jim now shifted to run his tongue along "Rona's" inner thighs, while very gently spreading wet kisses on her skin. He brought his face to the thick fleece between her legs and rubbed his nose in it, inhaling deeply of her sweet perfume and natural woman-scent. Bobbi gasped and her hips involuntarily lurched as her bedfellow slipped his long wet tongue between her dewy labia. Jim forced it as far up her love channel as he could, then let it slide out with teasing slowness. Her reaction encouraged him to torment her all the more by running the tip of his tongue all over her pussy without making contact with her small clitoris. He knew that stunt was always slow torture for Rona. He heard the girl's breath catch in her throat and felt her body quiver as if stung by an electric jolt. He guessed that she was now ready to be brought to an even higher pitch. Equal to the task, Jim put the tip of his probing tongue into direct contact with her sensitive nether bud and began flicking it back and forth. That never failed to drive Rona wild. "Oh, Jim! Christ, Jim!" Bobbi moaned as she felt the hot-bladed thrills of excitement shooting through every nerve of her body. Unable to hold himself back, Jim repositioned himself to mount her, guiding his rock-hard organ to her furred aperture. Tiny, pulsing shocks raced through him as Bobbi reacted to the first touch of his maleness by trying to wriggle away like a frightened virgin. Jim steadied her with a firm grip and then, with a hard thrust, he shoved himself as deeply as he could into the unplumbed well of Bobbi's scented maidenhood. "Oh!" Bobbi gasped as the tender walls of her interior expanded to accommodate the penetration. Jim was surprised to find "Rona's" pussy so tight. He felt his foreskin stretched back to the limit, until it almost pained him. Then his breath caught in his throat when her vaginal muscles seemed to contract around his throbbing organ, trapping it in a powerful grip. Now that was his girl Rona! Jim began fucking poor Bobbi with quick, hard thrusts, his hips moving like pistons, plunging him to the very depths of her maidenly recesses. "Ayiiii! Ayiii!" Bobbi cried, throwing her head back and holding to Jim's waist with clawing fingers. Her nails hurt him, but Jim let everything fade from his mind, except the thought that he was a young and healthy male fucking that special young woman that belonged to him alone. He dug his toes into the mattress and pumped himself into her for all he was worth. Each hard, long stroke made his heart beat faster. He felt Bobbi's vaginal muscles go into action, not by any direction on her part, but by the stern dictates of Mother Nature, who decreed that man and woman should mate. Bobbi, her body operating on pure instinct, frantically milked his rigid prick of his clear preliminary secretions, while her silken legs entangled themselves with his in a lock that not even Houdini could have picked. Jim was rapidly approaching climax, but he wanted to be sure that Rona came with him. Delaying his own pleasure with a mighty exertion of will, he deliberately brought himself into contact with her clitoris, subjecting her tight pussy to the relentless friction of his love-making until she was moaning with pleasure. Jim could hear the loud slurping noise of his cock sliding in and out of Bobbi's wet, fleshy vise while his testicles began to ache with an urgency that begged release. Suddenly Bobbi felt Jim's prick expand within her - -- and the first jet of searing hot viscous nectar splashed against her cervix, igniting a series of explosions deep inside her body. "Aaaaiii!" the girl cried out at the top of her lungs, digging her heels into his thighs and raking her fingernails across his back as an irresistible series of passion-quakes shot through her. Jim's hips went on pumping even after the last drop had been drained from him by Bobbi's hungry, if involuntary, contractions. He could finally bear his herculean exertion no longer and collapsed upon her. He heard the hot rasp of her breath in his ear, felt her velvety arms wrapping themselves tightly around his neck, clinging to him desperately. Bobbi, overwhelmed with drink and the aftermath of her orgasmic release, didn't hear the sound of the doorknob turning. Even Jim missed it and only when the bedroom light went on suddenly did he look back in surprise. The surprise became pure horror when he saw Rona's astonished face. "Jim! What are you doing!?" Jim really didn't know what he had been doing. Or rather he did know -- he just didn't know whom he had been doing it to. He looked down at the face of the girl under him, with its big dewy eyes and lips half-parted with astonishment. Confusion filled those eyes as Bobbi blinked up into Jim's face, then they glazed over as she passed out cold. "Who is she?" Jim gasped. "I never saw her before in my life!" "Don't play innocent, Jim!" sobbed Rona. "Can't I even let a friend sleep over without you jumping her?" "So she's a friend of yours!" Jim jabbered as he rolled off of Bobbi and threw a sheet over his nudity. "Honest, Rona, I didn't know. It was dark and I thought she was you. She was wearing your perfume!" "A likely story! I've had it, Jim! I can't trust you anymore! I was such a fool!" Suddenly her anger turned against Bobbi when she spotted the girl's cut-offs and halter hanging upon the back of a chair. She snatched them up and threw them into Jim's face. "Here, these are hers! Get your playmate dressed and then both of you get out of here! This is my apartment and I don't want to see either one of you in it again!" # Again dressed in the halter, cut-offs, and sandals inherited from Dori, Bobbi was sitting opposite Jim in the booth of a small all-night cafe. With a pounding hangover and fighting hard to control the trauma of what had happened to her, she had been doing her best to explain who she really was, to no avail. Jim shook his head. "Miss, that's the nuttiest story I ever heard! Rob put you up to this gag, didn't he?" "You stupid son of a bitch! I'm me! If you won't believe me, nobody else in the world will either!" "Hey, calm down, honey. You'll make a scene." Tears of frustration ran down Bobbi's cheeks. Her headache alone was enough to bring tears to her eyes. She rested her elbows on the table and her face in her hands. "God, Jim, don't you have any shame? You take my virginity, maybe even knock me up, and now you're calling me a liar!" "Come on -- I'll grant that you look enough like Rob to be his sister, but you can't be Rob, magic or not. Rob would have died before he'd dress like that. Anyhow, the way you acted in bed tells me that you're a one hundred percent wild woman -- and Rob Wescott didn't like boys!" "All right," said Bobbi, forcing a rush of anger through her despair, "if you won't believe me, try sleeping next to the idol I've got here. It'll turn into a girl too, I bet, and I hope somebody treats you just the way you're treating me!" She realized the instant that she touched her purse that the statuette was gone. "-- Hell, I must have left the damned thing back at Rona's." "I'm too tired for all this crap," Jim sighed. "Look, you're a kook, but I like you. There's something, well, kind of sweet about you. I'd like to get to know you better. Do you have a place to stay? We can get a room together." Bobbi sprang up and grabbed her purse. "That's enough, Jim! You've been rotten to me! I thought we were friends, but you're out of lunch now that I really need you. I never want to see you again!" "I'm sorry. We could have started something beautiful." "Oooo!" Bobbi exclaimed in fury as she stalked away from the table, but the hopelessness of her situation dawned on her just then and she stopped in her tracks. "Did you forget something, baby cakes?" asked Jim. "For Pete's sake, Jim, I -- I'm penniless. I can't go home, and the streets aren't safe at night for a -- a woman. I just don't know what to do anymore! I might get raped or killed! My life is over." Jim started feeling very uncomfortable as he looked into Bobbi's big bloodshot eyes. But the events of the night had made him cranky and even unsympathetic. "Look, kid, I don't want to see you go away empty-handed. You were good in bed. I almost dropped a bundle on a girl in Sacramento last night anyway, so you can have it instead. I'd say you earned about a hundred tonight." Jim opened his wallet, took out five twenties, and laid them on the table. Bobbi looked at the money with a face that registered horror and sickness. "Are you calling me a whore, Jim? Is that it?" She stared with a hurt that made him cringe. "Why, Jim? What did I do to make you think I was a whore?" Her legs felt weak and she weaved; for a second she looked like she might fall over. Fighting to keep on her feet, Bobbi passed a hand over her face. "Cassandra did something very cruel to me," she began again, "but with a little help and some trust I could have bounced back. But I can't bounce back from this, Jim." Her voice cracked. "Not this." Bobbi McGee stood looking down at the money, her tears moistening it like a warm summer rain. "I'd throw it back in your face," she whispered, "but I need it. God help me, I need it." She broke into sobs and hid her face in her hands. Jim dropped his glance, embarrassed. "It's yours -- Miss. I'm sorry. I didn't mean --" The girl straightened. "I know what you meant!" Bobbi picked up the money as quickly as she could and then fled out the door. Left alone, Jim drank deeply of his coffee, thinking about all the craziness that had happened that night. This girl, whoever she was, had deserved something better, though he didn't know exactly why he should think that. He did know that he could have handled the situation better. If only he hadn't been so upset about his quarrel with Rona, and if Bobbi hadn't thrown him for a loop with that crazy story about being Robert Wescott. As mixed - -up as Bobbi seemed to be, there was something about her that touched him where he really lived. He was left feeling about as bad as a man could. # Jim had never lived through a day like the one which followed his strange encounter with Bobbi McGee. Before it was over, he was frantically driving around the city, anxiously questioning the clerk of every motel located near the cafe where he had last seen her. Finally he had managed to discover that the mysterious girl had stayed in the Balmoral, but only for one night, then had checked out. The clerk on duty only knew that she had bought a newspaper at the office just before she had left, and had asked him if he had heard about any unskilled labor jobs in the city. Thank God she's planning to stay in the city for now! Jim thought. He got himself a copy of the same newspaper and checked out every job that a girl without a past might apply for. Some businesses remembered seeing the scantily-clad young woman -- in fact very few could forget her -- but none of them would hire a person who didn't even have a library card for identification. Jim exhausted every possibility and for weeks thereafter he spent a large part of each day just driving around, looking for Bobbi's face, especially in those areas where poor working class people worked, ate, or shopped. And every day made him hate himself the more for what he had done. But then, one afternoon -- # Working hard carrying soft drinks and burgers to hungry motorists, Bobbi had gradually lost her loathing for her uniform, the white, hip-hugging short-shorts and the tight, sleeveless, midriff-baring red T-shirt. Being a carhop at Spanky's Root Beer Station didn't pay well, but at least it kept Bobbi from getting drooled on by the homeless at the free shelter, or needing to sell her body. She was having her first period, though, and felt both ill-humored and uncomfortable. Thankfully, menstruation, as bad as it was, meant that she wasn't carrying Jim's child. That was certainly one of the few good discoveries to come her way since she had turned into a woman. Lost in thought, Bobbi tripped over a teenager who was so preoccupied with her legs that he couldn't keep his own big feet out of her way. The carhop dropped her tray of waste Styrofoam and paper cups on the concrete before she caught herself. The brisk wind threatened to spread it far and wide. "S-Sorry, Miss," the youth stammered as he slipped away without offering to help her. Shaking her head, Bobbi bent down to resignedly pick up the mess while she still could. "I'm glad to see that you're all right, Rob!" someone said from behind her. Startled to hear her real name spoken, Bobbi stood up, turned, and saw a familiar Ford Taurus. "Jim!" Bobbi cried as she recognized the driver. Then she remembered what had happened the last time they had been together and got angry all over again. "Oh, it's you!" She turned away and stomped back to the serving counter; Jim switched off his ignition, got out of the car, and pursued her. "Rob, wait!" yelled Jim. "I haven't been able to sleep for worrying about you!" When she wouldn't turn, he caught her by the arm. "Will you leave me alone!" Bobbi exclaimed. "If you want a whore, swing down that street!" "Bobbi, don't. I've been going crazy. I've been watching for your face everywhere, I've been calling your friends, visiting the shelters, checking the hospitals -- reading the obituaries." "Hey, you're calling me Rob! Do you finally believe me?" "I had to believe you -- after I saw Rona." "What do you mean?" "She went to sleep next to that idol that you left in her bedroom -- and she turned into -- a guy." "Oh, no! Poor Rona!" Jim put his hand on his friend's shoulder. "It wasn't so bad. She got used to it really quick. We became great buddies. It turned out that we even liked the same sort of women!" "Rona had to change sex in front of your eyes before you'd believe me?" Bobbi asked sarcastically. "I'm trying to say that I'm sorry for the way I treated you, Rob. Can you ever forgive me?" Bobbi looked him over critically. "What if I don't? Maybe I should keep you on a guilt trip for the rest of your life." "Maybe you should," Jim replied grimly. Bobbi shook her head and gave him a friendly punch in the arm. "Screw that! You're forgiven, you big dumb lug. You're a fourteen caret bastard, but what the hell good does it do me to carry a grudge?" "Great!" cried Jim and, without thinking, he threw his arms around Bobbi, crushing her against his chest. Then, realizing what he was doing, and who he was doing it to, he let her go. "Sorry." Bobbi smoothed her hair. "Forget it. I've been needing a hug for a long time." "A hug? I'm so glad to see you that I could kiss you. Get in the car. I'll take you out of here." "Where are we going?" "You can stay with me." "With you and Rona?" "No. Rona calls herself -- himself -- Ron now and she's taken off. He met this girl whose father owns a chemical plant out East. Actually, they've known each other for years and were best girl friends. But when they got together accidently as a man and a woman, this strange chemistry just took over. They dated, they slept together, and finally Ron popped the question. He even admitted to her who he really was. She actually believed him, liked the idea, and accepted!" Jim shook his head. "I told Ron that he shouldn't jump into a hasty marriage, but --" "Marriage after only one month a man! Jeez, I wish I could adjust that easily -- not that I want to be anyone's wife." "Well, you'll feel much better once you're back among friends." "Friends? What friend did I ever have, except you? I had acquaintances, colleagues, lovers, but not friends." "Make new friends, then! Start small and build from the foundations, right?" A horn honked; a customer needed service. "I have to get back to work, Jim. Come back for me at seven and I'll go home with you." "Seven? Why?" "I get off work then." "Rob!" I can't run out on these people on such a busy day. In fact, I'd better give Spanky's a couple days notice so they can find a replacement for me." "Are you heat-struck? You don't have to give notice to a root beer stand!" "I think I should, Jim. The managers saved my life. When I showed up here I was at my last gasp. I was ready to jump off a bridge. The only other job offer I had was from a pimp downtown. I didn't have any identity; only the fact that I cast a shadow proved that I actually existed! The Spanky people thought that I was an illegal alien, but they helped me anyway. I owe them a lot." Jim touched her chin, lifted it, and gazed understandingly into her blue eyes. "You were always a great guy, Rob Wescott. Now you're a great gal. You just keep getting better and better." "You'd better get used to calling me Bobbi McGee," the young woman advised him with a wane smile. # By the end of the weekend, Bobbi's carhop career lay behind her. The last few days had been full of settling in and busy planning. The two friends were now taking a needed break, sitting upon the carpet, a deck of cards and a discard pile between them. Bobbi was wondering whether she should risk her twenty cents in the pot on just one pair of kings, or go for an outside straight. That first night at Jim's apartment he had asked her whether she had any plans. Bobbi had stared at him very seriously. "There's a lot more to this curse than we thought, Jim," she had said. "I have this compulsion. It's been eating on me and eating on me." She covered her face. "I can't fight it any longer. Whatever you think, whatever the world thinks, I just have to give in to it. I hope you'll still be able to respect me." "What do you mean?" asked Jim. "I have to become a French maid!" "That's good," Jim had replied with a thoughtful nod. "Terrific working conditions, great benefits. And there's lots of jobs out there. In fact, I could use a little French maid myself. I saw this really cute uniform in one of Rona's lingerie catalogs. Lacy panties, short-short skirt, and an itsy-bitsy five-layered petticoat. You'll love it! I'll love it!" "Then wear it yourself, sucker!" "I'm glad you can joke about this, Bobbi," Jim had laughed. "I think you're going to be all right." "I'm not going to let this thing beat me, that's for sure," Bobbi had declared firmly. "Cassandra probably wanted me to commit suicide, or become a drunk, or a druggie or something. Well, she's not going to have the satisfaction! I'm going to live a good and productive life, Jim, even if it kills me. That's the best way I know of to get back at her." "You can do it, and I'm going to help you. As I see it, what you need most right now is a solid identity." "Yeh? How do I get one?" "You can be Rona!" Bobbi had looked up, her brow furrowed. "Rona?!" "She and I talked the idea over, just in case we ever found you. She left all her old documents with me, for you to use. She left everything, in fact, except her money." "She'd do that for me?!" "Rona was a little excitable, Bobbi, but a great - -- person -- at heart. And she always did like you as Rob." Bobbi had concurred. "She even liked me as Bobbi McGee, until she thought I'd double-crossed her. But how can I go around as Rona? People knew her." Jim had shook his head. "She wrote all her friends and told them that she was entering a reclusive religious order and that she wouldn't be coming back. That took care of one angle. Better yet, she doesn't have any close relatives who'll ever bother to check up on her." Bobbi had considered the possibility carefully. "It could work. She and I were both in the realty business. I could apply for a decent job using Rona's resume. But it still might be smart if I moved to a different city." "If you do that," Jim had begun carefully, "would you mind it very much if I came along with you?" Bobbi had looked at him intensely just then, as if seeing him for the first time. # "Two cards," Jim called suddenly, bringing Bobbi back from the past. She peeled a couple cards off the deck and tossed them to his side. "I'll stay," she told him. Bobbi thought of Rona's hasty marriage. Rona had become a straight guy in a matter of just a couple weeks. But even after a month, Bobbi still didn't know where she stood. She had been fighting the idea of having a sexual attraction to men with more ferocity than Custer fighting the Indians. But, deep down, what did she really feel? It was a troubling thought for a person who had never had a gay bone in his -- her -- body. Bobbi decided that she could not afford to be rigidly fixed upon the past. She had to stop thinking left to right and start thinking right to left. Cassandra's magic certainly could change the body. But did it change the emotions also? Bobbi was beginning to think that it did. Maybe the witch herself hadn't fully understood power of the idol, that the wound it inflicted actually carried its own healing. Bobbi smiled to herself. That was why Cassandra's revenge would always be a hollow one. Would Bobbi want to be a man again if she could? Yes -- in a minute! It would have been a relief to be able to take refuge once again in what was safe and familiar. Rob had had a routine, a past, he was working toward a future. He had been able to take comfort in the familiar things around him. Now those familiar things were gone and Bobbi suspected that there would be no going back to them. But what lay ahead in this strange new life? That was the question that kept her lying awake at night. Bobbi was pretty sure that she could not recreate the female equivalent of Rob's bon vivant style. It wasn't just the physical obstacles that her anatomy presented. Events had changed her heart even more than magic had changed her shape. She had no more taste for the promiscuous adventuring that had defined Rob's social life. Bobbi suddenly had a frightening thought. Was it a woman's instinct taking over her mind, urging her to seek stability and permanence in her relationships, crowding out her former penchant for variety and adventure -- or was it just the kind of enlightenment that a human being sometimes must come by the hard way? Bobbi had kept to her little rented room near Spanky's, drinking the bitter drops of loneliness to their dregs. She had finally grasped the fact that though she had had many lovers as Rob, Rob had had no love to speak of. Had that situation been Rob's fault? she had wondered. Was it because Rob had failed again and again to truly give of himself that no one now had anything to give to Bobbi in return? That had to change, the young woman vowed. She couldn't remain a spiritual hermit; she had to be a part of life, she even accept the drab and the risky parts of life. A new body, a new identity, a new job, a new style, even a new sex. This was a good time to make some serious changes. Bobbi looked up at her companion. She had begun to feel very strangely about Jim. She had been deeply touched by his efforts to find and to save her. But it was more than just that. Bobbi was starting to enjoy his company -- no, his nearness -- in ways that she never had before. The sound of Jim's voice, that cocky expression in his brown eyes, even the knot in his necktie, stirred her like only the beauty of a girl had before. The young woman watched her comrade as he poured over his cards. More and more with passing time her mind had gone back to the night that she and Jim had made love. During those first few days afterwards she had recoiled from the memory in horror. But, over the following empty weeks, it had come back to her in a new aspect, like a butterfly escaping from a hideous pupa. The substance of the act remained the same, of course, but she could see it now in a different and brighter guise. But what was she thinking? Her and Jim? That was nuts. They loved one another, truly, and in so many ways, but they never could love one another that way -- could they? Bobbi couldn't forget that Rona had found love with her own best friend. Best friends. What a wonderful phrase that was. For some reason the Frank Sinatra song that she had heard on her last night as a man came back as if in answer to her dilemma: "The simple secret of the plot, Is just to tell them that I love you a lot. Then the world discovers as my book ends, How to make two lovers of friends." No! That was crazy! Bobbi thought. It would be much smarter, if she had to get involved with a male, to make it someone -- anyone -- other than Jim. Somebody who didn't know about her past, someone who wouldn't carry around all that baggage of bygone associations, who wouldn't have had his ideas about her forged in their former skirt-chasing and masculine camaraderie. But Rona had found love with an old friend. Their friendship must not have been a hindrance, but might even have helped things along. Jim and she, Bobbi knew, had so much in common. Sports, politics, music - -- as well as that indefinable trust that allowed two friends to tell one another their problems and worries without self-consciousness. Maybe what the pair of them had had up to now presented a good foundation on which to build something new. To his credit, Jim had been cleaning up his act lately. He had been loyal to one girl while Rob had been going though more than a half dozen. Could Jim be faithful to one person for the very long haul? Could Bobbi? Bobbi had definitely acquired a new respect for loyalty and consistency of late. She wondered whether the two of them -- Damn! She had to stop thinking that way! Oh, this man-woman business was so confusing! Suddenly Jim passed his hand in front of her eyes. "Earth to Bobbi. This is Houston. Are you reading us, Bobbi?" "Sorry, Jim. I've got a lot to think about." "I guess you do. It must be hard coping. What's it like, being a woman? Bobbi shrugged. "I'm still on the first chapter, buddy. I'll tell you when I'm deeper into the book." "Maybe you could write a book of your own!" "Maybe I could." But how would the book end? Bobbi wondered. "I wouldn't like reading the part about what we two did together. It must have been pretty bad for you, right?" Bobby tossed down her cards. "Don't keep beating yourself up about that, Jim. To tell the truth, I wasn't so drunk that night that I couldn't have said something if it was really terrible. Even while it was happening I guess I thought that it was - -- well, sort of interesting." "I knew it!" crowed Jim, at once happy and relieved. "A man can always tell when the woman under him is liking it!" "Yeh, I guess we can," nodded Bobbi absently. She had for so long been thinking along those lines that old habits were hard to break. "By the way Jim," she suddenly asked, "what did you do with that idol?" "Oh, that. Rona and I tried to use it turn her back into a woman that second night, but when that didn't work, I put it into a safe-deposit box. I hope nobody falls asleep in the bank vault." "I'd have smashed the thing -- or sent it to a politician that I didn't like!" Then she added with a naughty laugh, "Hey, we could have our first woman president!" "You're not thinking, buddy. That idol might be valuable someday, especially I can just find a rich, frustrated transsexual. In fact, why sell it at all? Just rent it out a night at a time. It can make people happy. You know, doing well by doing good." "Hey! If you're going into business, I deserve a cut of the action! It's my statue!" "You've got it, Partner!" Jim replied with that same grin that had been sending shivers up and down Bobbi's spine lately. He extended his hand. "Shake on it?" Bobbi's eyes met his enigmatically but didn't take the proffered hand. It seemed to Jim that she was making some sort of important decision. "You know, in the old days men and women thought it was uncouth to shake hands together." Jim lowered his hand. "Yeh? What did they do?" "Maybe it's time I demonstrated." Jim had turned over to Bobbi Rona's entire wardrobe -- and that woman had been a clothes horse. Now she had everything she needed for every occasion - -- except that she had to replace Rona's B-cups with C's. At the moment she was wearing a pair of old yellow pajamas bought for a dollar at the Salvation Army store a couple weeks earlier. She had been briefly tempted to lounge around instead in one of Rona's little baby dolls or camis. If she had been alone, she definitely would have. But clothing sent a message, and when the evening had begun, Bobbi still hadn't decided what sort of message she should be sending to her friend Jim. But now Bobbi began to unbutton her pajama tops, very slowly, very deliberately, her eyes whimsical and coy. Jim sucked nearly all the air in the room when he saw his best friend's breasts fall bare. "Oh, Bobbi," he said with a dry swallow, "I'm game, but -- but are you sure --? Bobbi was sure. She put her thumbs into the waistband of her bottoms, pushed them down to her ankles, and then kicked them off. She wished now that she had worn one of Rona's outfits after all. Yes, a baby doll, some make-up, and maybe a dab of perfume -- Magic Midnight would have been perfect. Poker was fun, she was thinking, but strip poker would add a challenge the following night. Both her and her buddy liked chess. She wondered if there was such a thing as strip chess. In her mind she was already in bed with Jim. Jim reached out, both hesitation and desire written deeply into his expression, and placed his hand upon the roundness of the girl's hip. Bobbi put her hand over his, squeezed it, and with her other arm enfolding his neck, she drew Jim's mouth up against hers. The sandpaper-like texture of his chin and upper lip felt strange to one used to kissing the tender faces of girls, but Bobbi McGee knew that she would have to get used to it. She would have to get used to a lot of new things, in fact. The weeks ahead would certainly be a learning process. But Robert Wescott had always been a quick study. THE END