NOW WHAT



Jerry Emerson had heard the rumors about the Game. There were some
strange things going on in that old house on the hill. Group sex, wild
orgies . . . unbelievable stuff. Now, if you could just get past the
thorny hedges, razor wire, and killer dogs . . .

It was easy enough to crawl through the hedges. Ripped clothes and a
scratched up face were no big deal. The "razor wire" consisted of a
few rusty strands of ordinary barbed wire. No problem cutting a passage
through with ordinary electrical pliers. No sign of the dogs. They must
have been out to lunch.

Pinpoints of light were coming from a cellar window. After scraping
away years of accumulated dirt and spider webs from the cracked glass,
Jerry got down on his knees to peer inside. People were doing something
down there . . . They were naked! They were --

A brutally strong hand had grabbed Jerry by the collar and was hauling
him onto his feet. He coughed and choked as a backhanded slap spun him
around. Two hefty men grabbed his arms and frogmarched him up crumbling
stone steps and in through what looked like an entrance.

There was a tall, middle-aged redheaded woman sitting behind a rolltop
wooden desk. She looked up from a stack of papers and eyeballed Jerry
as if he were an insect on a dissection table. She looked familiar
somehow. He must have seen her somewhere. He just couldn't remember when
or where.

The men tossed him like a sack of potatoes onto a battered sofa beside
the desk.

"Another one, Mistress Celia," said thug number one.

"Caught in the act," said thug number two.

"Trespassing may be only a misdemeanor in these parts, but it will fetch
you at least a week in jail," the woman said. "Judge Watkins happens to
be a very special friend of ours."

"Let me go. Please!"

"We could do that. However . . . then you might never find out what it
is we do here. You _are_ just a little bit curious, aren't you?"

"Well . . . "



"Let's welcome a new participant in the Game."

Jerry stood in the center of a circle of applauding people. They were
naked. So was he.

The object of the Game, insofar as he understood it, was to demonstrate
self-control. To hold back from coming. To delay orgasm as long as
possible.

As a newcomer, he had been accorded the "honor" of being Game Master.
This meant he could choose any of the other participants, any of
the other people in the room. Women or men. Singly or in groups. In
any combination. He could then perform whatever non-injurious acts
upon them that he desired. He could have vaginal, oral, or anal sex
with any of the surprisingly attractive women here. He could have the
latter two varieties of sex with any of the men. He could be the active
or passive participant. He could penetrate or be penetrated, or both
simultaneously. But there was one important proviso: he wasn't allowed
to come.

If, within the allotted time, he should lose control and ejaculate,
then he lost. Lost the Game. At that point, he would become "fair game"
for any and all of the other participants. For the next two hours, they
could _use_ him in any manner they liked. This had some very disturbing
implications.

Jerry did not so much fear what the women might do to him if he lost.
After all, having one or more of them climb on top of him -- being
submerged in female flesh -- wasn't all that unpleasant a prospect.
But the men. _The men!_ He had the distinct feeling that some of them
hungered for his body and wouldn't at all mind ass-fucking him until he
was way past raw and bleeding.

"Now, Jerry, since this is your first time, we've set the time limit at
twenty minutes. For experienced participants, we usually set the period
at an hour or more."

Celia, the redhead who had given him such a hard time after his capture,
was explaining the rules. Apparently she, too, played the Game. She was
naked, like everyone else here, and she looked damn fine in her bare skin,
even though she must have been in her forties, at least.

"If you can last the complete twenty minutes, you'll avoid losing. The
other way to beat the Game to to compel one of the other participants
to orgasm before you do. Then you're home free.

"And, oh yes, you're not permitted to use your hands. Any other body part
is okay.

"One of the collateral benefits of playing the Game is that it teaches you
self-control. But, only if you survive that long, kiddo. Ready to give it
a shot, or have you changed your mind? This is your last chance to get out
while the gettin's good."

"I'm game," he said.



Jerry didn't stand a chance. At twenty years old he was a semi-virgin.
His one prior fumbling attempt at sex had ended in disaster. He'd gotten
so excited while pawing his girlfriend that he had ejaculated in his
underwear while madly flailing around, try to pull his pants off. He
still remembered Gina's hoots of laughter.

It was actually an impressive performance for a virgin. He was on his
third woman, and eight minutes into his time when it happened. Trying
to be clever, he had been sucking at nipples and clits, avoiding the
temptation to insert himself into any of the enticing orifices.

It was Celia who did him in. Absorbed in tongue action, Jerry first
became aware of her when powerful female legs scissors-locked around his
midsection. He fell backwards, bumping his head lightly on the carpeted
floor. By then it was too late because Celia had somehow swiveled atop him
and managed to pull his shaft into her using only her marvelously flexible
legs. Her trained pussy was squeezing and pumping him. It took only a
few seconds in his aroused state before he began spurting helplessly
inside her. He groaned as he realized that he had lost. He _was_ lost.

"We'll go easy on you this time," Celia told him. "We wouldn't want this
experience to shatter you, after all. You're young, strong, and eager,
and some day you might even be a useful addition to the group."



As instructed, Jerry lay on his left side on a padded exercise mat. Facing
him was a dark-haired woman whose curvy body he had groped just a few
minutes ago. She massaged his limp dick into semi-hardness, then tamped
it into her pussy with her fingertips (_rather like stuffing the cavity
of a turkey prior to baking_). Now there was someone lying behind him,
rubbing something wet and cold between the crack of his buttocks. _Lube._
"Ready for some backdoor action?" a baritone voice asked.

It wasn't as if he had never taken it up the ass. When he was younger,
he used to push a finger or two up inside himself while masturbating. And
once, on a crazy impulse, he had gone into a gay bar and let himself be
picked up. The guy's cock hadn't been all that big, and it had felt kind
of like a medium-sized turd moving in and out of him. It hadn't hurt,
exactly, but it hadn't turned him on either. No big deal.

_Uh-oh._ This guy's shaft was something else again. Jerry felt his asshole
stretch, and then stretch some more as his gut slowly filled up with hard
flesh. Now _he_ was the one being stuffed and it was pulling him apart
inside. In front though, the woman had begun rhythmically pussy-squeezing
his cock, and waves of pure sensation drowned him in a fruit salad of
sensory overload.

_Ah!_ Jerry was coming again and his cock began its dance of celebration
in its sheath inside the woman, and his asshole began involuntary
contractions around the cock embedded deep in his rectum. The woman
had pulled his head against her breasts and gave him comfort as the man
continued pounding in and out of him.

Jerry was sore inside, but it wasn't so bad, and the thought of being
ass-fucked while in the warm arms of a woman was somehow weirdly exciting.
Now he felt a throbbing up inside him, deep in the upper chamber of his
ass, and a wetness there. _The man had come in his ass._ He had been
thoroughly and completely fucked, both front and back.

"My turn now," a man's voice said. _Another_ man's voice.

Again, the feeling of being ripped open. This time it was easier, maybe
because his ass had already been stretched and loosened. _I could probably
get used to this,_ Jerry thought. _I might even get to like it after a
while. Actually, I like it a little already._ He felt himself hardening.

The woman smiled, and took his dick into her mouth and playfully tongued
it. It was fully erect now.

Two other men ass-fucked him. Jerry was getting sore and abraded inside.
His cock was still painfully hard. Celia approached and asked if he'd
like that tended to. When he nodded, she bent over, facing away from him,
and presented her naked ass. Her pussy was slick with moisture.  It was
tight and hot, and eminently fuckable. And, as he found out a few minutes
later, so was her asshole. But still, something wasn't quite right.

There was a dark and heavy energy hanging in the air -- the bitter-sweet
reek of expended sexual desire and its accompanying sense of regret. The
lights seemed to have lost some of their brightness and people's faces had
taken on a black-tinged aura. Jerry shivered in apprehension. Something
was very wrong.

"End of session. You're free to leave now."

Celia led him up the stairs and to a door. The door leading back to his
dull, meaningless life.

Jerry reached for the doorknob. Well, he'd had his glimpse of the
forbidden. Now what?

_A loud explosion and momentary pain. Darkness. The end . . ._

There was a voice in the far distance. "It's a girl."



Celia looked at the snub-nosed pistol in her hand. Such a small weapon,
but such great damage it could do. Jerry's body lay sprawled at her feet
on the floor. The back of his shattered head was leaking gouts of blood
and gray matter.

"So, the cycle begins once more," the woman who had spent the first twenty
years of her life as Jerry Emerson whispered to herself. In the distance
she could hear sirens. She herself had called the police moments before
shooting Jerry.

It would mean a death sentence, she knew. A cold-blooded execution-style
killing immediately following a sex orgy would leave a judge and jury
little choice. But this was the way it had to be. Fate had led both her
and Jerry to this particular meeting and to this ending of paths. It
was also a beginning.



There were blurry . . . something . . . faces! Peering downward at him.
Jerry screamed his outrage up at them, at the world. All he could do
was wave chubby little arms and legs, and scream. He had almost no
control over his body, over _this_ body. The last thing he remembered
was facing a dark wooden door, and a woman . . . Celia? . . . behind him,
then agony and release. And now this!

"Have you decided on a name?" A gruff masculine voice among the alien faces.

"My husband and I like 'Cecilia.' She was my favorite aunt." The soft
voice of a woman. The sound of it was comforting. Jerry lay in her arms
and looked up at her. Cecilia? Usually shortened to Celia. The world
lurched. Jerry realized . . . he (no, _she!_) was in the body of a baby
girl. He (_she!_) had somehow been reborn as Celia.



    "Guilty as charged, Your Honor."

    As expected. It had been an open-and shut case. She wouldn't bother
    asking for clemency.



"No! Don't you _dare_ touch yourself down there!"

Two years old and Celia (_Jerry!_) was still curious about what it felt
like being in a girl's body. Aside from that, childhood was so terribly
boring. Being watched every minute. Being told to do _this_, warned not to
do _that_. Damn it, he/she was an adult. Twenty-plus-two years old. Years,
many more years before he/she could be free of supervision once more.

School was difficult. Celia had hardly been a good student in her (_his!_)
past life, but had still picked up most of the required skills. What a
bore it was having to learn to read again. She already _knew_ how.
Dangerous to let on, though. Teacher might feel threatened by an
uppity student, and little Celia would get slapped down. Again. Better
to just shut up and bide her time.

Money was a problem. The quarter-a-week allowance little eight-year-old
Celia got didn't go very far. Not unless she was willing to take risks.
She _knew_ who was going to win the World Series that year and just
happened to "remember" some other things that hadn't happened yet, too.
A few judicious bets with classmates ran up her stake to $5. Now what?

Two years later she had $600 in change and small bills buried in a jar
in the back yard. It hadn't been easy. She had managed to convince a
schoolmate's older brother to place illegal bets on horse races, and
once on the presidential race. No one in their right mind would have
put their money on Kennedy, not before the debates, when Nixon was so
obviously a shoo-in. The odds had been good, though.

Now what?



    The execution date was set. To the consternation of her friends,
    not to mention her lawyers, Celia had adamantly refused to appeal
    the conviction.

    "After all, I _did_ murder the guy in cold blood. And I damn well _am_
    sound of mind. Let justice be done."

    And justice would indeed be done. A month from today.



Not every fourteen-year-old girl had half a million secreted in a Swiss
bank account, safely out of reach of authorities and parents. It hadn't
been easy. But foreknowledge of things to come and steely determination
had done the job.



    "I'm grateful, of course," the reporter said. "But why did you agree
    to let _me_ interview you, when you turned down requests from every
    one of my colleagues?"

    "You're the only one who has, to my knowledge, written about
    paranormal phenomena in even a halfway sympathetic manner," Celia
    answered. "Not that I think you'll believe what I'm about to tell
    you . . . "

    " . . . and so, you see, my body will die tonight, but _I_ won't. I
    fully expect to reawaken in the body of an infant. The infant whose
    adult persona I shot and killed one year ago."

    "You're right. I don't believe a single word of it. But, you betcha,
    it'll make an interesting story."



Twenty-one years old. Finally a full-fledged adult. A very wealthy adult.
Celia had half a billion in cash and investments.

Why? Why had she bothered to accumulate that much? She had asked herself
that again and again in the past few years. The answer, when it came, was
chilling in its cold, crystalline logic.

She needed money, a great deal of money, in order to set up the necessary
preconditions for certain future events. There had to exist a very special
type of ritual. A ritual that could release the particular type of energy
to trigger a psychic transfer backwards in time. A ritual/game of orgy and
sexual -- well, by present-day standards it would be called "depravity."
Prevailing social conditions wouldn't tolerate the Game. Therefore, she
would just have to change the social climate. That took money. Tons of it.

How to start? Well . . .

Through several of her front companies, subsidize with discreet injections
of cash certain sociologists and authors starting to have half-formed
ideas about a "sexual revolution." Fund a few "liberating" plays and films
on related topics. Help along a selected few rock bands singing suggestive
lyrics set to an inhibition-loosening beat. Establish a defense fund
for erotic publishers being prosecuted by the government. Contribute to
the campaigns of various progressive political candidates. Buy a chain
of newspapers and several radio and TV stations to get the message
across. There were other interesting possibilities, too.

Along the way she'd had ample opportunity to sample the new sexual
freedom for herself. Her sensual appetites, so carefully restrained while
"growing up," at last found full expression. She took as lovers men and
women of all inclinations. She rediscovered and savored sex in all its
multitudinous varieties and permutations.

More than once, she wondered if this could be the cause and justification,
the entire _purpose_ of the social movements of the 60s -- just
to establish the right conditions for perpetuating the cycle of her
alternating lives. All these people marching for personal freedom, for
sexual liberation -- all this just for _her_ sake? Or was it the other way
around? Did Jerry/Celia exist just to provide the triggering events for
the craziness going on in streets and bedrooms all across America? What
was cause and what was effect? In the end, did it really even matter?



    She was staring at the ceiling, strapped down on the cot. There was
    a sharp sting as the IV needle entered her vein.

    "Any last words, Celia?"

    "Do your damn duty. Inject your damn poison. Gloat as you watch me
    die. I spit in your ugly face as I go joyfully to meet my fate."



The rundown Victorian mansion was perfect for her purposes. Now it was
just a matter of setting up an organization . . . and recruiting people
who were sexually adventurous. Oh, yes. And making sure that word of what
was going on got to a certain Jerry Emerson, resident of this fair town.



    Disorientation. Dizziness. Then a distorted voice in the
    distance. "It's a boy."

    There was something wrong! She couldn't remember. She couldn't
    think! Where was she? _Who_ was she?

    "Indeed, doctor. There were some complications with the delivery. The
    umbilical cord became entangled. This may have temporarily cut off
    blood flow to the newborn. We'll have to wait and see whether there
    was any permanent brain damage. I'll go tell the Emersons."