Chapter 1    Cross Dressing

“Where is this thing?” Buffy growled in frustration, her grip tightening on the hilt of her sword.

“Don’t worry, Buff,” Xander consoled, scanning the edges of the cemetery for surprises.  “It can’t hide forever.”

“Yes.  Because what demon can resist the lure of the Slayer?” Anya chirped in too brightly, poorly covering her sarcasm, a sure sign she resented being dragged out of the Magic Box to patrol with them.

Unfortunately, Buffy had to acknowledge that she was right.

“I’m sorry I can’t do a locator spell for you,” Tara apologized, watching as well.  “If I had something that belonged to it, or if I knew what it was . . .”

“Don’t worry about it,” Buffy consoled her.  “Anya’s right, with my demon magnet skills, it should show up anytime.”

Xander protested good-naturedly.  “And here I thought I was the resident demon magnet!”

Buffy smiled as Anya inserted herself in his arms.  “You do have that stasis spell ready, yeah?” she continued talking to Tara.

Tara nodded.  “It’s more of an impediment than actually being stasis, but it should slow whatever it is down enough for you to stop it.  If Willow hadn’t had class tonight . . .”

“Tara, you aren’t our second choice,” Buffy said comfortingly.  “You’re good at what you do, and that’s all I need . . .”

They all froze at the sound of something vaguely human-sized forcing its way through the hedge.  Buffy raised her sword, Xander pushing Anya behind him defensively as he hefted his axe.

And Spike burst out of the bushes.

They all sagged in relief as he took in their appearance.  “Just a few pitchforks and torches shy of a mob, aren’t you?”

“Dammit, Spike,” Xander complained, “You scared the hell out of us.”

He grinned, obviously pleased.  “Well, that’s a nice change, innit?  What are we hunting tonight, children?”

“We,” Buffy said derisively, waving a finger from him to herself, “are not hunting anything.  We,” she indicated the others, “are looking for an unspecified demon we got a report on.  Scared some of the college kids, it sounds like it’s pretty big.”

“About seven feet high, covered in feathers or scales, face like a shaved Pekingese?”

“Yeah, how did you know?”

He pointed.  “It’s standin’ behind you.”

They all whirled.  Sure enough, the creature stood there as though hoping they hadn’t noticed it.  Faint hope.

“So what do you think,” Spike asked, not taking his eyes off the thing, “blunt or edged?”

Buffy adjusted her grip on the sword.  “As big as it is?  I’m thinking we don’t want to take any chances.”

“Hack and slash it is.”  And he swept the axe out of Xander’s hand, swinging it in an elegant figure eight to catch the haft in both hands.

“Hey!” Xander protested.

“Hang back with the other ladies, whelp.  They might need your help.  Ready when you are, Slayer.”

She didn’t bother to sound the charge, just moved, and he was right there with her.

The creature responded as well, letting out a high, glass shattering screech as it flexed out long feline claws.  It moved fast, faster than she’d expected, meeting them halfway with vicious swipes of its extended arms.  Spike went low as she went high, dodging those wicked claws as she heard Tara begin chanting.  “Winged Mercury, hear our plea, all speed and movement come from thee.  From our enemies take your gifts . . .”

It slashed again.  Buffy back flipped over the outstretched arm, but it caught Spike, knocking him aside like a doll.  He caught himself and rolled back to his feet, charging back with murder in his eyes.

Whatever the featherlike things were, they seemed to be acting like chain mail, glancing the blows of her sword off it.   A flying kick to the head staggered it, giving her a chance to evaluate.  The scales were concentrated on the torso, arms and legs, thinner on the belly and neck. Spike spun and dropped, knocking its legs out from under it, but it simply turned the fall into a back flip, landing back on its feet to strike out again.

Suddenly the creature slowed, moving as though through honey.  Buffy glanced over her shoulder to see Tara sagging in sudden exhaustion.  She grinned at the witch as she shouted, “Spike!  Stomach!”

She planted herself to pivot on her back heel, twisting into a powerful back swing when suddenly the creature changed.  It morphed into a young man, perhaps six feet tall, strong and evenly proportioned, soft blond hair tumbling into a face she couldn’t quite see.

And she wanted him.  Oh god, her whole body ached with need for him, with the need to possess him, protect him.

But it was too late.  The sword bit deep into his neck, sending his head flying just as Spike’s axe sunk deep into the man’s gut.

An actinic shockwave erupted from the crumpling body, crystalline and piercing, resonating through all of Buffy’s senses.

She was unconscious before she hit the ground.

When Buffy came to, she just felt wrong all over.

Her brain went into Slayer reset mode.  Heart still beating?  Check.  Head still attached?  Check.  Okay, so she was still alive, which meant that whatever that demon had been, it was now either dead or had split when she went down.  But she couldn’t remember how it had taken her out.

She slowly began to flex her muscles, checking for sprains and fractures.  One deep breath told her no broken ribs.  But her clothes felt painfully tight, cutting deep into her hips, binding her shoulders.

She pushed herself to her feet, eyes still bleary, feeling impossibly top heavy.  She could make out a black mound not far away and staggered over to it to determine friend or foe.

It was definitely foe.

It was the headless remains of the demon they had been fighting.  It looked as it had originally, bearing no resemblance to the man she had seen before decapitating it.  A large black hole smoked in the middle of its belly.  She’d better find the head.  Giles would want to see it for identification.

“Who the bloody hell are you?” a woman’s voice demanded from behind her.

She turned to see a woman in her late twenties standing there, white blonde hair bright in the streetlight.  She wasn’t tall, five foot three or four at the most, with wide pale eyes and impossibly high cheekbones.  She wore a black t-shirt that hung loosely on her torso and a pair of black jeans so large she had to hold them up around her waist.

And Spike’s duster, four sizes too big for her but looking like it belonged.

“You with that guy, corn-fed?” the woman with the familiar London accent challenged.  “Cuz you might wanna take off before the Slayer and I give you more of the same.”

“I am the Slayer, Einstein!” she insisted, thumping her chest.

Her very flat chest.

“Guess nobody ever told you Slayers are girls, ya pillock!”

For the first time, she looked down and actually saw herself.

Her clothes all felt tight and binding for a reason.  Her long, muscular legs stuck out from the hems of her slaying jeans, the button and zipper ruptured to make room for her straight hips and waist.  One more deep breath threatened to do the same to the buttons on her blouse which barely held closed over the barrel of her flat chest.  The sleeves were torn along the seams to hand in rags about her shoulders, revealing the corded muscles of her arms.  She looked like the Incredible Hulk.

And she was most definitely male.

“Oh god, this can’t be happening,” she moaned, studying her long, slender, heavy hands in horror.

“Didn’t think you’d actually have to face the Slayer and her mates, did you?”  The other woman snickered.  “Poor plannin’ on your part.”

And suddenly the cues the woman was sending made sense.

“Spike?”

The woman stopped posturing to look at Buffy curiously.  “I know you, mate?”

“Spike, you have breasts.”

“What?  I do not . . .” But her hands flew instinctively to her chest, catching palmfuls of soft round flesh as her pants slid earthward, revealing pale, toned slender legs.  The t-shirt was long enough to hide her intimate parts, but Buffy hid her eyes anyway.

“Bloody, buggering . . .” Spike pulled her (his, Buffy corrected herself) his pants back up, looking at her questioningly.  “Slayer?”

She just nodded.

He started swearing again, but Buffy suddenly remembered with horror.

The others.

That shockwave had been strong enough to knock the Slayer and a Master vampire unconscious for who knew how long.  What would it have done to the humans?

“Xander and the girls,” she breathed.

Spike stopped in mid-rant, sniffing the air.  “Over there,” he pointed, moving in the same direction.

“Blood?”

He shook his head.  “But wrong.”

They found them moments later, all laying on their backs where the shockwave had flattened them.  One girl, plump and curvy with wavy dark hair.  A young man with a lean figure and short titian hair.  And off a little further another man, thickset and tall, mouse hair falling in his eyes.

Xander, Anya and Tara.  All transformed.

Buffy knelt over Tara, checking for a pulse while Spike moved instinctively to the only woman down, obviously forgetting that “she” was Xander, his constant tormentor.  Buffy couldn’t help but grin at his unconscious chivalry.  She sighed in relief as she found the flutter of heartbeat in Tara’s throat, thready and fast but strong.  “She’s okay,” Buffy called back to Spike.  “How about them?”

“They’ll live,” he confirmed, his soft contralto sounding odd to her ears.

“We should wake them up.  We need to get somewhere safe to figure out what’s going on, and you and I won’t be able to carry all three of them.”

“Oh, this should be fun,” Spike said, regarding the insensible brunette at his feet.  “Can’t wait to see the whelp’s reaction, waking up as such a tasty morsel.”

“You aren’t so hard on the eyes yourself,” she said snippily before she could catch herself.

He grinned.  “Like what you see, do you?”

She rolled her eyes, not caring to admit that any woman looking like Spike did, Buffy normally would have instantly seen as competition.  “Just wake them up.  Gently.”

“Ruin my fun,” he groused before bending down next to Anya.

Buffy leaned back over Willow’s girlfriend.  “Tara,” she said softly, laying one of those bulky, awkward hands on the other girl’s shoulder.  “Tara, are you awake?”

She groaned softly, a rich bass baritone sound.  “What . . . what happened?”

“There’s been an accident, Tara.  Don’t open your eyes just yet.”

Tara struggled to try to rise, but Buffy held her down.  “Am I blind?”  There was fear in the words.

“No,” Buffy said comfortingly, wondering what her voice sounded like to them.  “But I want to make sure you aren’t hurt first, okay?”  Tara nodded hesitantly.  “Okay, does it hurt anywhere?”

She tipped her head, eyes still closed mentally running through a checklist similar to Buffy’s.  After a couple of moments, she said, “No, I don’t think so.  I feel . . . off.  Not quite myself.  But nothing’s broken.”

“Okay, good.  Now I need you to take a deep breath and listen to me.  There’s been an accident.  A magical accident.  You and the others have changed.”

“Changed?  How?”

Buffy drew in a deep breath.  “You’re a man, Tara.”

Her eyes flew open, warm brown eyes that were still Tara, that saw through deceptions and illusions to truth.  “Buffy?”

“Yeah, it’s me.  Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.  The others?”

Buffy helped her to her feet.  “They seem to be okay.  We’ll know better after . . .”

“You mean I can pee standing up?” an excited tenor said from behind them.

Tara smiled shyly, a faint blush on her cheeks.  “I guess Anya’s okay.”

 Buffy chuckled as well, turning to see Spike helping the redhead to her feet.  She was a little put out to see that even with the changes effected by the transformation, Buffy was still the shortest of the women.  Now men.

They gathered around Xander’s supine body.  “You alright, Anya?” Buffy asked, confirming.

“Spike already determined that.  Can we wake Xander up now?  I don’t like seeing him like that.”

“Unconscious?”

“Female.”

Buffy bent down.  “Xander?  Xander, wake up.”

“Not yet, Dad,” he mumbled.  “Don’t have school today.”

“Alexander Lavelle Harris, wake up right now!”  Anya snapped.

He sat bolt upright.  “I’m awake!  I’m awake!”  He blinked wide-eyed, looking around him half seeing.  “Who are you people?”

“These are your friends, I’m your girlfriend.  You’ve been changed into a woman.  A not unattractive woman.  Now we have to go find out what happened so Buffy can fix it.  So please get up.”

“But you’re all guys.”  He was still groggy.

“And you’re a girl, sweetie.”

“I’m a . . .” His hands came up automatically to his chest, cupping his generous breasts through layers of flannel and t-shirt.

His cry was high and piercing.  In other words, he screamed like a girl.

“Oh, do it again, Harris,” Spike scoffed.  “That air raid siren of your screams damsel in distress.  Let’s see who comes to answer it.”

“Spike, shut up.”  Buffy looked around.  “We’d better go to my house.  It’s closest.  We can call Giles and Willow from there.”  She helped Xander to his feet.  “You okay?”

He held up his loose jeans, a haunted look in his eyes.  “I don’t think I’ll ever be alright again.”

Chapter 2    Pronoun Trouble

Joyce finished up the last of the dinner dishes, enjoying the night’s quiet.  Dawn sat at the dining room table, finishing her homework, her headphones on and presumably playing full volume.  Joyce had a brief pang wondering where Buffy was.  Hopefully tucked up in her dorm room doing schoolwork, but she knew better than to count on it.  She closed her eyes and breathed a soft prayer for her warrior daughter and picked up a dishtowel.

She was disrupted by a thump and soft voices on the back porch.  Her heart skipped, but she grabbed her most effective weapon, the phone, and went to peer out into the night.

Joyce knew they were safe from vampires, as there were only two that currently had invitations into the house.  But there were other things, things she didn’t like to think about.  And there were regular, everyday prowlers better left to the police.

What she hadn’t expected to find was a group of college kids sneaking onto her porch, looking like they had swapped clothes with each other.

Joyce opened the door, but very carefully didn’t step across the threshold.  “Can I help you?” she asked in her sternest voice of authority.

“Um.”  One of the young men sidled forward, uncomfortable in his open trousers and too tight feminine blouse.  “Hi, Mom.”

And it hit her that this young man looked exactly like Hank had when they had started dating twenty years before.

“Oh my god.”  Joyce’s hand flew to her mouth.  “Buffy?”

“Yeah.”  He (she, Joyce revised) looked mortified.  “Can we come in?”

“Of course, baby!”  She wrapped her arms around her suddenly taller child, guiding her in.  “But who . . .”

“What, you don’t recognize my friends?”

Joyce looked again, and suddenly she realized she did know them.  At least some of them.  “Good heavens, Xander?”

The curvy brunette cast down her eyes.  “Hey, Mrs. Summers.”

So the strawberry blond with his arm around Xander must be . . . “Anya.  Please come in.”

But Joyce couldn’t place the ash blond athletic boy.  “Mom,” Buffy took pity on her, “This is Tara Maclay, Willow’s girlfriend.”

Joyce felt a double tug of discomfort.  She had known about Willow’s change in orientation, of course, both from the girls and from Sheila Rosenberg, Willow’s mother, who was certain this was simply another attempt at rebellion, like the musician.  But Joyce had had a chance to talk with Willow about it herself, and didn’t share Sheila’s assessment.  She wasn’t altogether comfortable with it, but she accepted it as real.

But this young man, shy and unassuming, with soft eyes and shaggy hair, seemed all she would have hoped for Willow in a normal relationship.  Frankly, he seemed to be what she would have hoped for her own daughter.

Who was now the spitting image of her father at that age.

With a deep mental sigh, Joyce set aside her own issues and gave Tara a comforting smile.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Tara.  Willow has told me a lot about you.”

He blushed, turning away.  “It’s nice to meet you, too, Mrs. Summers.”

Dawn appeared in the doorway.  “Hey, Mom, what’s going oh wow!  Spike?”

Joyce swung her head back around to see one of the most stunning women she’d ever seen standing in her porch door.  The oversized clothes did nothing to hide her hourglass figure, and her electric blue eyes, high cheekbones and barely full mouth were arresting.  Even with no make up save a touch of eyeliner, she looked amazing.

But the leather coat and the smirk could belong to no one but Spike.

“’Lo, Joyce.  Hey, Niblet.  Mind if I come in?”

Joyce noticed he didn’t seem as self-conscious as the others, as though his gender was of supreme indifference to him.

She also found she was getting a headache from all the pronoun switches she was having to make.

“Your invite was never revoked,” Buffy huffed, “more’s the pity.  Get your undead butt in here.”

Joyce shot Buffy a stern look.  Her daughter had no way of knowing the small rituals Spike and Joyce had established when he had started coming here occasionally for hot chocolate and comfort.  “Of course, Spike.  Please come in.”

He smiled and crossed the threshold, gently closing the door behind him.

“What happened?” Dawn asked, still staring at all of them in wonder.

Buffy sighed.  “Do you mind if we only tell this once?  It’s not such an interesting story I want to have to repeat it.”

“Of course, honey.  What can I do?”

“Call Giles.  He’s going to ask me a bunch of annoying questions to prove who I am, and I just want to get into some clothes that fit me.  Come on,” she said to the others.  “Let’s go see what we can find clothes wise.”

Joyce punched speed dial twelve into the handset and lifted the phone to her ear.  After two rings, Rupert’s soft baritone came through the line.  “Hello, Rupert Giles.”

“Good evening, Rupert.  This is Joyce Summers. I hope I didn’t wake you.”

“Joyce, what a surprise!  No, not at all, I was just settling in to wait for a report from Buffy.  Is everything alright?”

Joyce glanced up the stairs where she could hear the kids rummaging around, drawers banging shut and doors slamming closed.  So much for her nice, quiet evening.  “Something happened while they were out on patrol.  They’re here now, but they’re . . . different.”

“Different how?”

She drew a deep breath.  “They’ve changed genders.  The girls are boys and the boys are girls.”

“Oh dear lord!”  She heard him pause, heard the click of something against the phone.  “Buffy?”

“Is a photographic copy of her father when we were in college.  It’s eerie, Rupert.  What could do this?”

“Not many things.  Joyce,” his voice lowered a pitch in concern, “are you certain it’s her?”

“Who else could it be?  Rupert, you didn’t see . . .”

“Joyce, there are many more things out there that could mimic the appearance of someone familiar than could affect the kind of change you are talking about.  May I speak with her?”

“She’s changing clothes right now.”

“Joyce, for your and Dawn’s safety, I need to speak to her.”

She glanced at where Dawn had been working, and where she no longer sat.  She must have followed the others upstairs.  Fear clutched at her heart as she called up the steps.  “Buffy?  Mr. Giles would like to speak to you.”

She could hear the sigh all the way down the stairs, but a moment later the extension picked up.  “Hey, Giles.”

“Buffy, your mother was telling me about your mishap.”

“Mishap.  Now there’s an understatement.”

“You understand that I have to be certain . . .”

“I understand if you don’t’ get over here and get this straightened out, you’re going to be on the receiving end of another not-so-silver knife stabbing without benefit of Fyarl.”

“Buffy!” Joyce protested.

“No, Joyce,” she thought she heard amusement in his voice, “that’s exactly what I needed to hear.  I’ll be right there.”

“Stop by the dorm and get Willow on the way.  She had class tonight, so she’s probably off the hook, but if she’s been dabbling again and something went wrong . . .”

“I’ll call her immediately I get off the phone with you.  Joyce, do you mind if we hold a team meeting in your living room?”

“Not at all.”  She glanced into the living room to confirm it was tidy enough for visitors.  “I haven’t gotten to see you all in action before.”

“There won’t be much action,” Buffy complained.  “This is the part where we spend a lot of time sitting around and talking.  I hate this part.”

“I know,” Giles said consolingly.  “We’ll get to the action part as quickly as possible.  I’ll be over as soon as I have Willow.”  And he disconnected.

“Better make it fast,” Joyce heard Buffy grumble, her new voice resonant in frustration, before her daughter hung up the phone.

Chapter 3    He Said, She Said

Giles and Willow arrived twenty minutes later to find the others seated around the living room in various emotional states and various modes of dress.  They had resorted to the expedient of swapping clothes with each other.  Xander wore an old oversized pair of sweats of Buffy’s (which were still too small for him) and Tara’s blouse.  Anya was dressed in Spike’s jeans and Xander’s t-shirt while Tara wore Xander’s jeans, which were about three inches too short, and his flannel work shirt.  Buffy was dressed in spare fatigues Riley had left in case of emergency.  They were a little big all over, but they covered her.  Spike had raided Buffy’s wardrobe for a pair of jeans that fit him like he was painted into them and a plain white t-shirt with the word “Bitch” printed in simple block letters across the chest.  Joyce was more curious how such a shirt had ended up in Buffy’s dresser than that Spike had chosen to wear it.  While the others were all barefoot, Spike was wearing a pair of red canvas low tops that looked suspiciously like Dawn’s.

Buffy was pacing the room in frustration, but Joyce found she couldn’t look at her daughter like this for too long.  She was reminded too much of young romance, first kisses, whispered promises that were destined to be violated.

Everyone was relieved when the doorbell rang.

“I swear it wasn’t me!”  Willow insisted vehemently as she came into the house.  “I was in the programming lab all . . .”  She froze in her tracks in the door.  “Holy goddess.”  She scanned them, assigning names to new faces, focusing on one.  “Tara?”  She crossed over to the couch to sit next to her partner, taking Tara’s hand and touching her face.  Tara tried not to flinch.

Giles remained in the doorway, evaluating.  And coming up with an observation he was none too happy with.  “What is Spike doing here?”

Spike grinned.  “Why, Rupert, ‘m touched you recognize me, what with the new digs ‘n all.”  His sweet soprano shimmered with amusement.

“Shut up, Spike.”  Buffy backhanded him on the shoulder.

“Oy, watch the upper body strength, Slayer, I’m a delicate little flower now.”

“You’re a vampire, Spike.”  She paused.  “You are still a vampire, aren’t you?”

He gave her a sour look, then gently shook his head, allowing his vampiric features to slip into place.  Joyce had only seen him look like this once before, that night at the high school, and she had been too full of adrenaline and too ignorant of what she was actually seeing to remember it well.  She often completely forgot that he was anything other than an unusual young man who occasionally enjoyed her company.  But now . . .

He looked feline, his long, feminine features focused in along his nose and eyes.  He ran his tongue ferally over sharp, ragged teeth and grinned, looking for all the world like a kitten toying with a mouse.  “Still all monster, Slayer.”  His voice was harsher now.  He probably had to be careful of his tongue around those teeth.  “You never could put an end to me as a man.  Think you can do me as a girl, pet?”

“That is so cool!” a juvenile voice came from the dining room before anyone could respond to Spike’s innuendo.

“Dawn!”  Buffy echoed Joyce’s exclamation.

With a stern look at her eldest, Joyce turned to her youngest.  “Is your homework done?”

Dawn nodded, unable to take her eyes off of Spike as he shifted back into his human face.

“Then it’s bedtime.”

“But Mom . . .”

“Now, please.”

The girl turned, grumbling, to storm up the stairs to bed, ignoring the soft chorus of “Good night” from the assembled group.

“She’s just going to listen from the top of the stairs,” Buffy complained.

“You let me worry about that.  You have other things on your mind.”

“Quite,” Giles intervened.  “Let’s start with what happened tonight.”

Buffy narrated the events in the cemetery, punctuated by contributions from the others.

Willow squealed in excitement as Tara related the effects of the working she’d done.  “So the thicken spell actually worked?  That’s so great!  Now we can . . .” She looked around at the others, abashed.  “Talk about something else because this is so not the point now.”  But Joyce saw her squeeze Tara’s large hand in excitement.

With a stern look, Giles returned to the conversation.  “So this shockwave you felt, it was after you decapitated it?”

Buffy nodded, and Spike added “Felt like it came right up the handle of my axe when I slammed it in her gut.  Felt like I could feel it with all my senses at once.”

“His,” Buffy corrected.

“No,” Spike replied, looking at her as though she were stupid, “her.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.  At the last minute, the creature changed into a guy.  About six feet tall, strong looking, blond . . .”

“I was standin’ right there, Slayer,” Spike insisted.  “It turned into a girl.  I’ll grant you the blonde, but she was five two if she was an inch, and she had a figure that would stop traffic.”

“Spike’s right,” Tara interjected.  “It was a woman, but not quite so . . . statuesque.”  She flushed.  “And she had more auburn hair.”

Xander jumped in.  “They’re both right.  Dark hair, stacked.  Only more athletic.  And taller, five five or six.”

“Am I the only one that saw this thing as male?” Buffy complained.

Anya raised her hand.  “Only your description is completely incorrect.  He was tall, six foot four or so, with black hair and lots of muscles.”

Giles diligently noted down each description.  “Did any of you see its face?”

They looked at each other, all shaking their heads negatively.

“It went back to normal after we killed it, anyway,” Buffy added.

Giles looked over his notes critically.  “Well, there isn’t a great deal here to go on.  I think our next step will be for me to examine the remains before the groundskeepers clear away the body . . .”

“Oh!”  Buffy remembered, snapping her fingers.  “We brought you the head.”

Joyce was surprised to see him roll his eyes with a smile.  “You are too good to me, Buffy.”

“Well, hey, since you missed out on all the excitement . . .”

“And a right fetching little pepper pot you would have made, Rupert,” Spike taunted.

“But Giles,” Xander said before Giles could reply, “what’s happened to us?”

The Watcher set aside his notebook and thoughtfully removed his glasses.  “It could be any of a number of things.  It could be a simple glamour, although I doubt it.  Too much detail of your original selves remain.  Spike’s and Anya’s hair color treatments, Buffy’s vampire bite scars,” Joyce looked up at her daughter at that, who turned her head uneasily, revealing the three distinct sets of scars on the right side of her neck, one still pale from recently fallen scabs.  She’d been bitten again, and recently.  One more thing Joyce hadn’t known about.  But Giles went on, “These are all signs of the body’s physical experience, and not something a sorcerer is likely to include in an illusion spell.  It may be a genetic alteration, which wouldn’t alter any of the physical changes you’ve experienced except those directly related to . . . um . . . your gendered characteristics.”

“Such as?”  Buffy asked.

Giles turned several shades of purple.

Spike snorted, amused at the Watcher’s discomfort.  “Piercings, for one.  Hard to have a Prince Albert when you’ve got no peter to put it in.”

“Yes, thank you, that imagery should lull me peacefully off to my rest tonight.”

“Priss.”

“Well,” Willow said, rising off the couch.  “I guess I’ll start working the illusion spell angle.  Just to confirm what we know it’s not.”  She took Tara’s hand in hers, looking a bit confused when Tara seemed to resist.  But the girl allowed her new, unwieldy body to be pulled up off the couch as well, and they headed toward the door.

“Will you have any troubles with your dormitory?” Giles asked, concerned.

“Nah,” Willow waved his concern aside.  “It’s co-ed housing.  Boys and girls are in and out of each other’s rooms all the time.  Um,” she caught Joyce’s eye in embarrassment, “in a strictly platonic sense, of course.”

“Of course,” Joyce nodded knowingly, hiding her smile.

Spike rose from his slouch in the armchair as well.  “May as well see what I can find out about this thing.”  He looked down at himself.  “Got the perfect disguise for a change.  I’ll see what I can pick up.”

“Or who,” Buffy responded snidely.

He just grinned.  “Jealous that I’m prettier than you now, Slayer.”

“Not hardly.”

He winked at her, then slipped out the French doors silently, presumably to leave through the kitchen door.”

“Not much we can do tonight,” Xander said, also rising from his seat on the arm of the chair Anya sat in.  “We’ll help you with corpse detail in the morning, Giles.”

“What do you mean we?”  Anya complained, following him out of the living room.  “You don’t look strong enough to carry a bag of groceries.”

He held the door for her, an incongruous sight.  “Well, you always did want to wear the pants in the family, honey.”  He winked at the adults and closed the door behind them.

“Mom, do you mind if I stay here tonight?  Since I’ve got a single, it might be harder for me to explain things.”

“Of course, honey.  I just put clean sheets on your bed the other day.”

“Thanks.”  She sighed, a deep, tired sound.  “They may be different muscles, but they all still hurt.  I’m going to go take a hot shower and crash.  Night, Mom.  Night, Giles.”

When she was gone, Joyce moved over to collapse on the couch.  “They’re really good at this.”

Giles moved to lean against the fireplace.  “They’ve had a lot of practice.  But yes, they are.”

“I mean, if something like this had happened to me, I’d be a wreck.”

“We’ve all had experiences at being something other than ourselves.  Buffy’s been another girl entirely, Xander’s been possessed by demon hyena spirits and split into his positive and negative selves.  Willow’s seen herself as a vampire dominatrix and I spent thirty excruciating hours as a Fyarl demon.  And of course we became one amalgamated group entity when we brought an end to Adam last year.  We have different markers for self than most people.”

“So it would seem.”  She let her head fall back against the cushions for a moment, then looked back up at him, concerned.  “They’re going to want to take these new bodies out for test drives, aren’t they?”

“I shouldn’t wonder.  They’re of an age for sexual experimentation.  Except for Spike, of course.  But as he’s a vampire . . .”

“Don’t you think we should speak to them?  About safety and protection . . .”

“I hardly think that’s necessary.”

“But what if . . .”

“Perhaps you’re right.  I’ll sit down with the lesbian witch, the thousand year old ex-vengeance demon and the One Girl in All the World, who just happens to be your daughter, and discuss a young man’s responsibilities as a sex partner, while you review the birds and the bees from a woman’s perspective with the master vampire and your daughter’s best male friend.”  She must have looked horrified, because he smiled.  “They’re smart kids, Joyce.  They’ll be fine.  Besides,” he drew in a breath to sigh, “by the time we could sit down with them, it will probably be too late.  I would imagine Anya and Xander will have fairly effectively deflowered each other by morning.”

“Good lord!  Do you really think so?”

“I’m fair certain of it.  Anya still hasn’t forgiven us for denying her the chance to explore the possibilities of having two Xanders at her disposal at once.  I don’t see her missing a second opportunity for experimentation.”

Joyce thought about that, perhaps a little too hard.  “I don’t think I can remember the last time I was that uninhibited.”

The look he gave her was potent, but his voice was velvety soft.  “I can.”

She felt a delicious shiver run through her as her body remembered being that free.  With him.

“Joyce,” he said softly, “just because the male population is too bloody ignorant to take you down off the shelf, don’t ever think that you are anything but a desirable, attractive and incredibly sensual woman.”

She met his gaze, saw a spark of the intensity that had drawn her to him that night.  “Do you ever . . .”  She hesitated, then brazened it out.  “Do you ever think about what if?  For us, I mean?”

He never took his eyes off her.  “Every time I see you.”

Her heart was pounding now.  “And?”

“And.”  He dropped his gaze.  “It’s my job to send Buffy into harm’s way, and yours to protect her.  It wouldn’t have worked, however much we might have wished otherwise.”

They were both silent then.  What else was there to say?

Giles was the first to shake it off.  “Well, I have an early morning.  And apparently a severed head waiting for my inspection.”  He gathered up his books and papers, stuffing them back in their satchel, then straightening up again.  “I’ll just leave through the back.  No sense risking something foul leaking on your floors.  Thank you for having us.”

She nodded, smiling sadly.  “It was my pleasure.  I learned a lot.”

“Good night, Joyce.”

“Good night, Rupert.”

And he was gone, leaving her alone in the house with her daughters and her memories.

Chapter 4    Clothes Horse

Buffy wiped the steam off the full-length mirror in the bathroom and looked at herself, really looked, for the first time.

    The man in the mirror was attractive in a wholesome, all-American sort of way.  Spike had called her “corn-fed,” and that wasn’t far off.  She and Riley could be cousins.  She wasn’t too tall, six feet or just a little shy of it.  Her face was more oval than Riley’s square visage, and her hair more pale, parted on the left and away from her forehead.

She had a decent physique.  Muscled but not freakishly so.  No flab, but she wasn’t a hard body, either.  Not someone you’d expect to be able to bench press five hundred pounds.  She flexed an arm and watched the muscle pop out.  Amused, she assumed the traditional body builder’s pose, arms curled and flexed in front of her, and she watched in satisfaction as her pectorals rose up, firm and round.  Not steroidal scary man-breast round, just . . . strong looking.  She was built much like she had been as a girl.  Averagely athletic, but nothing unusual.

She straightened up to toy thoughtfully with the downy white hairs scattered along the midline of her chest, darkening as they descended over her stomach to a straw color that continued down her legs and clustered at the junction, providing a nest for what lay there.

Finally, embarrassed, she forced herself to look at it.  Her penis nestled there, all soft and retracted, framed by her testicles and the curling hair, looking for all the world like an Easter basket treasure.  She poked it tentatively.  It stretched out its head a bit in response, then retreated back.  “Okay, that’s just creepy.”

    She shook off the fascination and wrapped the large towel around her chest, grateful Mom had splurged for bath sheets.  The regular bath towels they used would never have covered her.  She ran a comb quickly through her still-damp hair and went back to her bedroom.

“Not that one.  The color’s terrible on you.”  Dawn’s voice came from Buffy’s room.

Buffy threw the door open and stormed in.  “What are you doing in my room?”

Two pairs of surprised eyes turned to her.  Spike was holding a brown leather miniskirt up to his slender waist and a yellow sleeveless turtleneck to his chest while Dawn held two more tops for him to try.

He laughed when he saw her.  “You’re wearin’ your towel like a girl, Slayer.  Got nothin’ up top to show anymore.”

“I don’t care, Spike!  Why are you here?”

“He needed some clothes,” Dawn volunteered, “and he asked me to help.”

He shrugged.  “No reflection.  Couldn’t tell what looked good.”

“You can’t just take my clothes!”  She snatched the blouse out of his hand and stuffed it back in the closet.

“What’s the problem, Slayer?  ‘S not like you can wear any of it now.  I’m not keepin’ it or anything.”

“Dawn, please go to bed,” she said through gritted teeth.

“But we aren’t done!  He still needs . . .”

“Dawn, go to bed before I tell Mom you’ve been hanging out with vampires.  Again.”

“Fine!” she sulked, slamming the door behind her as she left.

Buffy turned to see Spike stuffing the skirt and a red handkerchief top into a nylon duffel bag sitting on the bed.  “So you’re just helping yourself to my wardrobe?”

He shrugged, crossing over to the dresser.  “Well, except for your shoes.  You have freakishly small feet, even for a bird.”  He fished around in the top drawer, coming up with three colorful sets of panties.

“Oh no!”  She snatched them away from him.  “You are not borrowing my underwear!”

He shrugged again.  “No bother.  Don’t usually wear them myself.  Bet the inseam of your best leather pants’ll feel real interestin’ on my bare girly parts.”

She grimaced and handed them back.  “Here.  Just . . . burn them when you’re done.”

He smirked at her as he added them to the bag.  “Good thing I don’t need any lift-and-separating.  Don’t think there’d be enough room in your tiny little things for my full figure.”

What infuriated her the most was that he was right.  He had probably two sizes and a cup on her usual chest measurements, and they were high and firm in the way only silicone could recreate in a human woman.

“How can you be so comfortable with all of this?”

“Oh, come on, Summers!”  He stopped, leaning back against her dressing table.  “This is a merry romp.  Even you have to see the humor in bein’ the one bloke in all the world.  You’re the first male Slayer in the history of Slaying.  It’d give your ruddy Council twelve kinds of fits if they knew it.  You and the Watcher and your Scoobies’ll figure it out in a day or two, and in the meantime you get to walk on the other side for a while.”

“I like the side I was on.”

He cocked his head at her, studying her for a moment.  “Yeah, I gotta admit you carry the other better.  This look is a little too white bread for my liking.  But you seem to like that.”  He turned and began poking through her makeup basket, finally choosing a lipstick which he pulled the cap off of to check the color.

“What good is makeup going to do you?” she derided.  “You can’t even see yourself to put it on.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her, obviously taking her words as a challenge.  With a deft twist of his wrist he exposed the lipstick, raising both brows in a knowing, amused manner.  Then he brought his hand to his mouth and slowly, almost sensually, wiped a smooth swath of deep crimson across his full lower lip.  Then he delicately curled both lips over his teeth and rubbed them gently into each other before releasing them with a soft pop.  With a quick run of his pinky down the divot in his upper lip, he was done, his bow of a mouth perfectly outlined in scarlet.  Buffy felt as though all the blood had rushed away from her head. “When I wasn’t applying Dru’s makeup myself, I was watching her do it.”  He sauntered over to the bed, dropping the lipstick into the duffel and zipping it shut before turning back to her, eyes bedroom soft.  “I love watching a woman put on her face.  She touches all the places I love best.”  He looked lost in the memory for a moment before shaking it off.  “Lighten up Slayer.  A couple of days and you’ll be back to your old, uptight, stick up the ass self, no worse for wear.”  He grabbed Buffy’s favorite leather coat, single breasted with a cinched waist, off the back of the closet door and slipped it on.  “Relax and live a little.”  He started towards the window.  “Oh, and Slayer?”

“What?” she replied, trying to control her breathing.

He grinned and let his eyes drop.  “Your towel is saluting.”  And with that he disappeared back over the windowsill.

Chapter 5    Androphobia

Tara waited until Willow went down the hall to the bathroom before undressing.

She paused as she was about to slip into the t-shirt and boxers Buffy had loaned her from Riley, then slowly and hesitantly turned to face herself in the closet mirror.

She was just so . . . big.  All over.  She was built like her brother, barrel chest, narrow waist, heavy arms and legs.  But she was taller, more like her mom’s brother Milo.  Her hair was like Milo’s as well, all ash blond and shaggy, as though someone had cut it with a knife.  She just looked so different.  Hard where she should be soft.  Coarse where she should be smooth.

And right in the middle, the primary symbol of what she was now and what she’s ceased to be.  Thrusting, invasive, dominating, subjugating . . .

Actually, it was pretty pathetic looking.

Red and wrinkled, barely larger than her testicles but heavy, nestled into the ash blond curls.  Frankly, it looked ridiculous.  This was what the big deal was about?  She didn’t seem to be missing out on much.

Embarrassed at her self-examination, she slipped on the boxers and the t-shirt.  Both of them stretched near the edges of their give, but they covered her.

She crossed to their bookshelf and the small altar there where she did her daily prayers and meditations.  She lit the small tea light in the womb of the amethyst-bellied goddess that sat there, and then a half stick of patchouli incense, the remains of what she had used that morning.  These small rituals, done every day in the same way, helped calm her mind, settle her spirit, and she closed her eyes, murmuring the words of her own personal blessing, giving thanks for the day as she magically connected herself to the energy of the earth, grounding and centering herself as she did every night.

The instant she made the connection, the energy that she drew on roared up into her flooding all the quiet places in her aura, whirling and swirling, all the spheres along her internal axis flaring open in coruscating implosions to receive, process, use, shape, work, do, do, DO.

She staggered back with a gasp, dropping instantly out of trance.  The energy drained away immediately, but she stared at her meaty hands, still able to feel it pulsing beneath her skin.

By the goddess, what had she become?

The sound of the doorknob shook her out of her horror, and she slipped into bed before Willow could see her like this.

Willow closed the door gently behind her, then hung her robe on the closet before peeking at Tara.  “You asleep already, baby?”

Tara didn’t meet her eyes.  “No, not yet.”

Willow sighed.  “I wish I could join you, but I’ve got to be magical research girl.”  She turned on her desk light and the computer before turning off the room’s overhead fluorescents.  “I’ll try not to make too much noise so you can sleep.”

“Thanks,” Tara mumbled.

Willow pulled a couple of Giles’ magickal tomes out of the locked cabinet over the desk and logged into the university’s computer network, quietly organizing her notebook and writing tools.  But Tara could feel the tension building, the sensation that meant Willow had to ask a question.  And right now there was only one question it could be.

“So, what does it feel like?” her partner finally blurted out.

Tara squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to bury her head in the pillow.  How did it feel?  To be the polar opposite of who she was, how she defined herself?  It felt freakish, horrifying, frightening beyond words.  Like she was some kind of parasite invading someone else’s body.  “It’s . . . you . . . I don’t’ really want to talk about it.”

“Okay, I understand.  It must be kind of weird.”  Willow turned back to her computer, keys clicking as she started entering keywords into her search engine.  “Xander and I used to talk about what it would be like if we were the other way around when we were kids.  Then I could see what the inside of the boys’ bathroom looked like.  And he thought if he was a girl, maybe he could finally take me in arm wrestling.”  Willow snorted.  “As if.  Did you see him?  I could so still take him.  But he turned out a lot prettier as a girl than I would have thought.  I think it’s the eyes.”  She whirled around in her chair.  “And did you see Spike?  Oh sweet goddess!  I thought my eyes were going to pop out of my head!  I wonder if his chest looks that good when he’s a man.  Gods!”  She turned back to the desk.  “If he gets stuck like that, at least he could make a decent living as a model.  Runway models keep night hours, right?  Or maybe doing Playboy spreads.  He seems even more lascivious as a girl than he was as a guy, which, hey, color me surprised, so maybe pervy photo spreads are more his speed.  And Buffy!  Wow . . .”

But Tara didn’t hear the rest of it.  Stuck like this?  Her stomach and heart seized up, blood pounding in her ears, deafening her.  She couldn’t stay like this, not forever.  A scream of horror burbled up in her throat, strangling her as she fought it down.  She wouldn’t panic.  They would fix this.  They had to.

Didn’t they?

Finally, she managed to say “Sweetie, please.”

“I’m sorry baby.  Go to sleep.  I’ll try not to wake you up when I come to bed.”

But Tara didn’t sleep.  She lay silently in the dark, trying to find the small sparks of herself, that held her identity.

When Willow crawled into bed hours later, Tara waited until she fell asleep before grabbing the spare blanket and her own pillows to slip quietly from the bed, making a pallet for herself on the floor. 

She lay there, alone and awake, until dawn finally came.

Chapter 6    When a Man Loves a Woman

“I look like Velma.”

Xander studied himself critically in the fogged bathroom mirror.  His hair, still damp from his shower, curled in soft waves around his ears and neck.  His face, reflected clearly in the small space he had wiped dry, was hopelessly round.  But he had a nice mouth . . .

He tipped his head, trying to see his figure better through the condensation.  Finally he gave up in frustration and wiped a bit more of the fog away, just enough to reveal his shoulders and  . . . slightly lower.  He turned left, then right, studying the slope of his neck and shoulders.  Then, with a glance towards the bathroom door, he bounced up on his toes.

Whoa.  Breasts.

He turned a little on his toes, studying them from all sides.  Round, not too high, large rosy nipples spread out like melted silver dollars over the center of them.  He lifted them, pulling and squeezing, watching them mold in his hands.  He was surprised to see the nipples slowly contract into tight crinkly nubs with a slight tingle of electricity that shot somewhere near the base of his stomach.  He’d seen Anya’s do this in response to his kisses and touches, but hadn’t realized the sensation wasn’t localized.

He ran his hands down over his round stomach.  Not flabby (well, not entirely), and not skinny flat like Anya’s, just softly rounded, with gentle hips curving in at his waist.  He looked down at his hands, small with delicate fingers resting on the curve of his stomach.

“Oh, what the hell.”  He grabbed a dry facecloth and quickly wiped down the whole mirror.

And there he was in all his feminine glory.

The best word he could find to describe himself was plush.  Gently curved waist, full hips, velvety full thighs.  Not an example of womanly perfection by any means.  But . . . nice.

“Did you say something?”

He squealed and snatched up his towel as Anya peeked into bathroom.  “Honey!” he said, trying to arrange the towel to cover all the relevant bits.  “I thought you were getting ready for bed?”

“I did.”  She came all the way into the room, and Xander realized she was naked.  Completely naked.  And hard as a rock.

“Um.”  He swallowed hard.  “I think you forgot your pajamas.”

She looked down.  “No, I didn’t.  We hardly ever wear clothes to bed.”

“Don’t you think this should be one of the exceptions?”

“Why?”  She looked genuinely confused.

“Because, sweetheart, we aren’t quite ourselves at the moment.”

“Yes we are.  You’re Xander and I’m Anya.  We love each other, and therefore we have sex.”

“Even though we’re . . .”  He couldn’t finish.

She shrugged.  “We’re still a boy and a girl, aren’t we?  Which avoids your silly same sex taboo.  I don’t see any reason for us not to have intercourse tonight.”

“But, Ahn . . .”

She frowned.  “You don’t find me attractive in this form, do you?”

Xander didn’t know how to tell her it was quite the opposite.  He-Anya was built long and lean, like a distance runner, all muscle, her chest bare of the soft, dark hair that welled up between her legs and framed her erection.  He didn’t know how to explain that his old brain still recognized her as Anya, comfortlovercompanionpartnermate, and his new body reacted accordingly, making him hot and electrified in new and interesting places.  He did want her, even like this, and he wasn’t sure what that said about him.

So, as usual, when faced with the unexplainable, he went for humor.  “Isn’t that supposed to be my line now?”

Backfire.  She stepped closer to him, and he could feel her cock prod gently into his stomach.  “But I find you very attractive like this.”

“You do?”  He stepped back and turned to look in the mirror again.  “You don’t think I’m too . . . heavy?”

She moved behind him to meet his eyes in the now clear mirror, her warmly tanned skin contrasting starkly with his pale flesh.  She rested her hands on his shoulders and then let them slide down his arms.  “I think you are beautiful.  All soft and round and feminine.”  She bent her head down and kissed him softly at the base of his neck, and he was surprised when his whole body trembled.  “Aren’t you curious?” she asked, gently placing kisses across his bare shoulder as her arms slipped around his waist.  “Haven’t you wondered what it feels like for me when you touch my breasts, my derriere, my vagina?  I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to get an erection.”  She glanced down between them.  “Although it seems to be more a matter of having than getting.  Does this thing ever go away?”

“As much as you think about sex?” he breathed.  “Probably not.”

“Hmm.”

“Anya, I’m just not so sure about this . . .”

It will be educational.”  Her hands slipped upwards to cradle his breasts, letting her thumbs stroke across his nipples.  He hissed and leaned back into her.  “I can show you all the things I like, and you can show me all the things you like.  When we’re back to our normal selves, think about how much better our sex life will be.”

“Unless I realize I’m gay.”

“You won’t,” she said certainly.

“How do you know?”

She turned him around and boosted him up to sit on the counter.  “Because you like breasts too much.”

With that she kissed him, gently nudging between his thighs as she slowly explored his new mouth.  Her lips felt strong on his, firm but gentle as she teased and coaxed him into returning the caress.  Slowly he succumbed as the sensations of just their mouths meeting shivered through his body.  He was the first one to attempt tentative forays with his tongue, which she eagerly reciprocated.

“It’s the man’s role to initiate these activities, isn’t it?” she asked against his mouth.

He slid his lips along to nuzzle at her ear.  “Traditionally.  But then we’ve never been traditional.”

“Still.”  She pushed him back gently to let her mouth course down over his neck and shoulder to place pliant kisses and caresses along the curve of his breast.  With a sharp catch of his breath, he closed his eyes to revel in the sensation.  It was like static electricity under his skin, radiating out to his whole body.  She gently massaged the left as her mouth focused on the right, lipping around the full curve of it in a descending spiral until her tongue whipped across the nipple.  At his gasp of pleasure, she smiled and sucked the suddenly erect nipple between her teeth.

“Oh my god!”  He clutched her head to him as she suckled at him, sending lines of hot fire shooting through him.  She bit down lightly and he cried out at the sharp jolt that fired into his brain.  With a long, languid lick, she shifted her attention to his other breast, repeating the work she had done on the other until he was whimpering over her head.  She looked up at him with a slightly smug smile.  “Did that feel good?”

He nodded weakly.

“Do you know what else feels really good?”

He shook his head.

She smiled brightly, then dropped her head even lower to run her tongue up through his folds, tapping his clit as she went by.

Something deep inside him flared and erupted, sending his body into convulsions.  He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, could only let the waves of pure joy wash through him, leaving him limp and spent against the bathroom mirror.

Anya looked up at him with a soft smile.  “Was that what I think it was?” he gasped out.

She nodded.  “Did you like it?”

He knew his expression was incredulous.  “Yes, I liked it.  I liked it very oh fuck Anya!” he moaned as she went back in for another taste.  “What are you . . .”

“You aren’t a man anymore,” she explained patiently between short, delicate licks.  “You aren’t done after one shot. Now just relax or this won’t feel as good.”

Holy god, this could feel better?  He didn’t know if he could survive it.  But she braced an arm over his stomach to fondle his breast as she pushed him back, so he leaned against the mirror again and let her have her way with him.

Her head bobbed gently as she worked, her nose nudging against his clit with tiny electric pulses as her strokes became longer, more exploratory.  It was amazing.  As the sensations became more and more intense, he felt more and more diffuse, as though he were expanding.  His heart pounded erratically, his breath coming in eager, unsteady pants.  It was hard to differentiate her tongue from his own wet, hungry flesh, but each pass she made wound something tighter and tighter in him.

Suddenly something hard, edged, almost sharp began working its way into his tender flesh, and he realized Anya was sliding one long finger along the trail her mouth had just laid down.  “Anya, no, I don’t. . .”

“Shh” she murmured soothingly, and her breath sent chills along his hypersensitized skin.  She continued to probe with the finger, penetrating him slowly, as though she were looking for something.  The gentle stretch, the friction of the rougher skin of her hands against his own soft tissue was astounding, and his hips began jerking in time to her gentle strokes as she focused her mouth on his nub, sucking and licking as she introduced a second finger into him.  The small room was filled with sounds now, echoing off the tiles to reverberate in his ears.  The last rational shred his mind retained was astonished to realize that the high whimpering pleas of desperation were coming from his own mouth, before Anya did something with the fingers she had buried deep inside him and the whole world disappeared in white hot blackness, his body bucking and sliding on the counter, knocking aside toiletries and appliances as he came and came and came.

When the world stopped spinning, he opened his eyes to see her still kneeling there, a proud smile on her face.  “Do you see now why I like that so much?”

He drew a deep, shuddering breath and nodded as vigorously as he could.

She rose up, still standing between his slack legs, gathering him close to her chest.  “And when we’re back to ourselves, you’ll do it more often?”

“I swear.”  He nodded again, slowly finding breath to speak.  “Every morning when you wake up and every night before you go to sleep.  More on the weekends.”

“See?”  She said against the crown of his head.  “Something good did come of this.”

They were just quiet, holding each other as he finished coming down.  But Xander quickly became aware of her erection prodding into his stomach.  It couldn’t be comfortable for her.  He let one hand fall to slide tentatively along her length.  Her breath hitched slightly.  “That feels good.”

He sucked up his courage and pushed her back, slipping to his feet and taking her hand to lead her to the bedroom.  “Let me show you something that feels even better.”

He could do this, he psyched himself, grabbing two of the pillows and dropping them on the foot of the bed.  If she could do it, he could do it.  He laid down on his stomach, propping his chest up on the pillows to elevate his head as he held it past the edge of the bed.  “Now come here.”

She did, her eyes wide, and it gave him some comfort to know she was unsure about this as well.  He took her narrow hips in his hands, drawing her into position.  Her cock jutted straight out from her body, so he didn’t even need to use his hands to guide it as he roughly tongued the seeping head.

It didn’t taste awful, and her groan of pleasure more than made up for it.  He loved it when she went down on him, sucking and gobbling at him like he was the sweetest treat until he shot down her throat.  He wanted her to understand how grateful he was every time she did this for him.  After what she’d just done for him, he needed to.

He observed distantly as he wrapped his fingers around her shaft that she was shorter and chubbier than he was.  Well, than when he had one. He propped his elbows up on the mattress and drew her closer, letting his tongue work firmly all around the head.  She thrust automatically, and he put a hand on her hip.  “Baby, I’m going to make this as good for you as I can, but if you do that, this is going to end early and with a horrible mess.  So you’re going to have to hold really still, okay?”

Eyes even bigger, she nodded.

He smiled up at her.  “You can make all the noise you want though, okay?”

Her high tenor voice nearly broke.  “Okay.”

He bent back to his work, sliding his tongue along the vein and down to his coiled fingers, tightening his grip as he slowly started jacking her, taking her head fully into his mouth.

With an earth-shaking groan, she knotted her fingers in his hair, and he could feel her fighting her body’s instinctive need to force its way into him.  “Oh, Xander,” she whimpered, and just getting those words out seemed to release a cascade of them as he resumed, sliding his mouth down and his fist up, to meet in the middle and retreat again.  “Oh god, Xander, that feels so oh yes do it again oh please Xander yes please . . .”

She felt interesting in his mouth and in his hand.  Like warm suede over cast iron.  There was no give to it at all as he squeezed and stroked, a familiar motion that felt so odd with his smaller, softer hands.  He pulled his mouth off, letting his hand slick up to the head, coating it in juice and saliva as he flexed his jaw, already a bit tired.  This was a lot harder than he’d thought. 

She moaned softly in complaint at the loss of his mouth until his now slippery hand began stroking hard and fast.  She swore fiercely and let her hips move in time to his strokes.  But when he encircled her again, she froze.  He slid his mouth down to meet his fist, but when his hand retreated, his mouth followed.  He braced himself but tried to stay relaxed as he took her deeper and deeper into his mouth.  It was one of the benefits of this position, that it tilted his head up and opened his throat.  They had used it often, but of course he’d never seen it from this perspective.

A steady, low stream of curses issued from Anya’s mouth, rewarding him for his hard work.  He could feel subtle shifts under his hand and knew what they meant.  She seemed to figure it out at the last moment, because she ripped herself away with a gasp.

“Anya?”

“Not the first time,” she gasped out, chest heaving, eyes wild.  “I want . . . inside, the first time.”

His heart clenched.  Point of no return.  But god, she looked so desperate, so needy.  He’d been left like that more than a time or two.  He loved her too much.  He couldn’t do that to her.

He rolled over and offered her his hand.  “Come here, baby.”

    She took his hand in hers, bending down to kiss him hungrily.  He indulged in the sensuous slide of their lips, tasting himself faintly on her, wondering if she could taste herself on him.  She pulled away and turned to open the bedside table, drawing something out.  He heard a tearing sound, then saw her struggle with something.

    He sat up.  “What are you doing?”

    She struggled a moment longer.  “Oh, I can’t get this on!”  She turned, and he saw she had a condom in her hand.

    He smiled.  “We don’t need those.  You’ve been on the pill since before we started dating.”

    “But I’m not the one who can get pregnant now.”

    “Oh.”  That was a bucket of cold water.  “Let me help you with that.”

     He took it from her and tightened it back up, then situated the center over her tip and with one deft hand motion rolled it down over her.

    She groaned, and he was surprised to feel himself respond to the gesture as well.  “Are you ready?” he asked her huskily.

    She nodded.  “Are you?”

    In answer he drew her down onto the bed next to him, catching her mouth as he rubbed his body against hers.  He reached down to cup her balls in his small hand and found them high and tight and so, so ready.  He knew he was ready, too, could feel the muscles in his pussy clench and release.  God, even just thinking the words sent shocks through him.

    Anya loved it when he talked dirty.  Maybe she still did?

    “I want to feel you inside me, Anya.”  The words came awkwardly at first as he switched roles and genders in his head.  “I want to feel your cock inside me.  I want to know what it feels like for you.”

    It wasn’t inspired dialogue, but she responded to it nonetheless.  “Yes, Xander, right now.  Please now.”

    “Yes, baby, now.  You can do it.”

    She shifted her weight onto one arm and leaned to the side so she could see what she was doing, grasping her cock with her free hand to guide it to him.  He gasped as it stroked along his tender slit, the head seeming to touch everywhere at once.  Then suddenly she sank a bit.  “There,” he gasped.  “Right there.”

    They both cried out as she surged into him, halfway down in a single stroke.  “Oh my god, Anya!”  He felt so full, so completely connected to her.

    She held him tight, face buried in his hair.  “Xander, oh sweet oh this is so good.” He nodded and rocked his hips against her.  When she moaned her pleasure, he continued, encouraging her.  “You can move now, baby.  You can move all you want.”

    She nodded, pulling back as he did to draw her cock almost out of him before forcing it back in, more slowly but deeper than the first time.

    “Oh yeah again,” he pleaded hoarsely.  “Fuck me, Anya.  I want you to fuck me so hard.”  He instinctively wrapped his legs up around her hips.

    She growled and gripped one of his hips as she began to find her rhythm.  “I’ll fuck you, Xander Harris.  I’ll fuck you till you can’t walk.”  She dipped and pulled in long, wet strokes, the sweat running off them making their bodies slip over each other in delicious suctioning sounds.

    And they forgot.  They forgot who was male and who was female, that one of them was supposed to be one thing and the other something else.  They simply were male and female together.  Just as it was meant to be.

    She came first, with a shuddering cry and a slam of her hips that drove her even deeper into him, and then again to tear him apart in gasping screams of release.  He arched up against her, clutching at her back and arms until she collapsed on top of him, totally spent.

    They lay together like that for long moments before she finally rolled them over onto their sides, slipping out of him.  She looked down in distaste and uncertainty at the heavy condom slipping off her now soft cock.  He breathed a laugh and took pity on her.  “Just grab it by the collar and pull back out of it.  It can go in the trash can.”  He watched as she did as he directed, then grabbed the hand towel under the bed to clean herself off as she must have seen him done any number of times.  As she discarded the towel, he asked, “Why do you have condoms, anyway?”

    She shrugged.  “They make cleaning my sex toys easier.”

    “Sex toys?  Plural?”

    “Well, a girl likes variety.  And you don’t want me to sleep with other men, so . . .”

    He shook his head and curled up in her arms, falling into their usual embrace automatically.

    “Xander?” she asked tentatively.

    “Mmm hmm?”  A comfortable lethargy was stealing over him, a combination of exertion and comfort sapping his energy.

    “Was I . . . did you like that?”

    That roused him.  He lifted his head.  “Why, didn’t you?”

    “No, I did!  Very much!  Maybe . . . too much.”

    He hugged her, kissed her firm lips gently.  “There’s no shame in enjoying it.  We’re just pretty incredible together, no matter what bodies we’re in.  I admit to being a little weirded out.  But it’s not that I like giving head, it’s that I like giving you head.  I love you, and I want to make you feel good.”

    “Even if it means being submissive to me?”

    “Anya.”  He looked her in the eye.  “When have you ever not been the dominant one in our relationship?”

    “So you liked it?”

    “Yeah, I did.  It felt . . . amazing.”

    She smiled, a touch of the predator in the curl of her lips as she pushed him back onto his back.  He could feel her hardening against his thigh as she partly covered his body with hers.  “Just wait until you see how it feels when you’re on top!”

Chapter 7    Pin Up Girl

    The Promenade was empty as Spike cut through.  Not surprising, actually.  The shops had all been closed for hours, and at three in the morning, even the human bars had been closed for an hour.  But it was the quickest way to get to Willy’s from his crypt, where he’d stopped to drop off the clothes and accoutrements that Dawn had helped him nick from the Slayer.

    And how was that for a kick in the balls?  He’d been lusting after the little bitch for years, and for a month had known he was actually in love with her.  And now he was wearing her clothes.  He pulled the lapel of her leather jacket up to his nose and inhaled the pungent aroma of her perfume and her sweat.  God, it was enough to make him hard.  Assuming he could get hard.

    He glanced down at his new curves.  He’d done as well as he could, but the best he’d been able to figure was that he was pretty good looking.  Mirrors were obviously no help to him, and the Little Bit hadn’t been able to find Joyce’s Polaroid.  But he could see for himself that he had great tits (and how much fun was it that they were bigger than Buffy’s?), a board-flat stomach and strong, supple thighs.  He just couldn’t put all the pieces together.

    He was about to turn off the mall when the small photo booth caught his eye.  It was one of those self-serve things the girls liked to get their blokes into to remember their evening by.  Sentimental rubbish.  But it was lit, which meant it was still plugged in.

    Spike looked around.  The Promenade was still empty, the only sounds he could hear coming from Main Street and the highway beyond.  He pulled out his wallet.  A ten, a five and a handful of singles.  Was it worth it?

    Yeah.

    He shucked off the coat and sneakers and chucked them into the bottom of the booth, following them in and drawing the curtain behind.  Next came the jeans and the blue and purple plaid bikini panties he’d swiped out of the Slayer’s drawer.  When he was down to his T-shirt, he leaned out through the closed curtain and fed the five into the slot.  Dropping into the seat, he whipped the shirt off and smiled just as the flash went off.  He stood up and the flash fired again, hopefully catching his chest.  He jumped up on the bench as the booth shot again, and on impulse he turned around for the last shot.

    He pulled the clothes back on quickly, tied the sneakers up and pulled his hair out of his collar before grabbing the strip of photos out of the slot.

    Nice.

    He sat at the far end of the bar at Willy’s, studying the photos in front of him.  The face especially.  He sort of looked like his mother, he thought.  Same pointed chin, same broad forehead.  Or maybe more like his Aunt Claire.  But the rest . . . well, it was all still just pieces, wasn’t it?  He pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and began to very carefully slice along the lines.  “Oy, mate!”  He called for Willy’s attention.  “You got any scotch tape back there?”

    The greasy barkeep sauntered over, looking down at the pictures.  “You know, babe, you want naked pictures of yourself, I know a guy . . .”

    “Willy, that line couldn’t buy you jail time, let alone time with me.  Now you got any tape or not?”

    He narrowed his eyes.  “You know, if you want something, sweet knees, you might wanna think about being a little nicer.”  The emphasis he put on the last word left Spike in no doubt about what the snitch thought was nice.

    Spike leaned forward and caught Willy’s shirt, pulling him closer.  “And you might wanna think about getting me that tape and a whiskey and beer, or I’m going to tell all your mates and that obviously brain dead specimen of a girlfriend of yours about the incident between you and the duck.  Got it?”

    Willy’s eyes went wide.  “How do you know about that?  Nobody knows about that!  Nobody but . . .” He stopped, realizing what he was seeing.  “Ho-lee . . . Spike?”

    “Yeah, and if you breathe a word of it to anyone, I swear I’ll find a way around this chip and kill you myself.”  He shoved him away.  “Now get me my drink.”

    Willy came back a moment later with the stein, shot glass and a plastic roll of tape.  Spike ignored him to put the final cuts in the pictures and began piecing them together.  He glanced around.  No Clem, none of his other usual contacts.  A pair of Draygo demons by the jukebox, a handful of vamps scattered around, a Nerinian at the other end of the bar and, clustered around a table by the back door, three human guys, obviously slumming.  Terrific.  He slammed back the whiskey and a mouthful of beer before going back to his project.

    Spike pulled off two pieces of cellophane from the roll and deftly stuck the pictures together along the back edges before turning it over.  The results were less than satisfactory.  His shoulders were missing, as was his navel and the ends of his legs.  With a growl, he pulled the head off and stuck it in his wallet, wadding up the rest to toss over the bar into the trashcan.

    He snapped his fingers to get Willy’s attention.  “Give me a pen.”

    Willy handed over a blue ballpoint and Spike grabbed a napkin to quickly sketch out the demon he and Buffy had taken on.  “You see anything like this before?”

    Willy studied the drawing before shaking his head.  “Nah, nothin’ like that’s ever come through here.  I can ask around for you, though.”

    “You find anything, take it to the Watcher over at the Magic Box.  He’s good for it.” He returned the pen and pulled out his wallet again to hand over the ten.

    Willy stopped him.  “Your tab’s already been paid.”  And he pointed to the table by the backdoor.

    Spike looked to see one of the guys wave as the other two checked him out.

    “Oh bloody perfect.”

    He shoved the money back in the wallet and stuffed the leather billfold back in his pocket as Willy grinned.  “Just like you said, Spike.  I didn’t say a word!”

    “Wanker,” he growled, but it didn’t seem to have the usual effect.  Gathering his dignity, he stalked out.

    He hadn’t gotten further than the other side of the street before he heard the first voice behind him.  “Now, baby, is that any way to show your gratitude?”

    Spike didn’t turn around, just kept walking.

    “Hey, bitch, I was talkin’ to you!”

    He heard the feet moving behind him and turned to face the three thuggery bastards.

    “You haven’t said anything yet I want to hear.”

    “You know, a pretty thing like you should know better how things work.  I scratch your back, you scratch my itch.”

    “Mate, a pint and a shot about pays for the time I’ve wasted on you already.”

    “Stuck up cunt.”  He grabbed Spike’s arm and yanked him close.

    Damn.  What had he been thinking?  He couldn’t fight these bastards without his head exploding.  And he’d be buggered if his first sexual experience in this body would be getting pawed over by these wanks.  Well, for a change he wouldn’t actually be buggered, depending on what they had in mind, but that was beside the point.  How to get away?  What would the Slayer do?  No good, she’d pound the piss out of them.  But what about the others?  Red, or the demon bird?  Well, Anya was easy.  She’d just . . .

    He dropped his shoulders and cocked his hip.  And smiled.  “You’re right.  I forget myself sometime.”  He lifted his hand to drift it down Head Thug’s arm.  “You and your mates here look like a right party.”

    Head Thug grinned at Thug One and Thug Two.  “Yeah, we know how to show a lady a good time.”

    Spike refrained from rolling his eyes.  “Do you like . . . games?”  He was using his best Marilyn Monroe routine, but didn’t know how well he was pulling it off.

    It must have been good enough, because Head Thug licked his lips.  “Oh yeah,” he breathed.  “We really like to play.”  And released Spike’s arm to reach for his ass.

    That was what Spike was waiting for.  With all his speed, he ducked under Head Thug’s arm and leapt for the fire escape five paces behind them, surging up to the roof.  He stopped and turned to look down on them with a smirk.  “Game’s catch me if you can, you bleeding ponces.  Enjoy fisting each other, cuz it’s all the action you’ll see tonight!”

    He laughed at their howls of frustration.  It was easier to ignore how close a call it had been without a heartbeat pounding in his chest to remind him.

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