Volunteers free porn video

Volunteers by BobH (c) 2012 - 1 - "That's it, that's very good, Carl," said Mrs Crawford, as if helping her husband out of the armchair and into his wheelchair was some sort of achievement. But then she offered the same praise and encouragement every time I did anything for the old guy. "Such a sweet boy!" said another voice. I glanced up to see Miss Cooper smiling up at me from her own wheelchair, having just returned from a leisurely circuit of the garden, courtesy of my buddy Sam. She winked at me, and I gave her a sickly smile in return. The way the old prune insisted on flirting with me, even going so far as to pinch my ass on one occasion, made me really uncomfortable. Unlike Mrs Crawford, who was overweight, Miss Cooper was twig-thin, deeply wrinkled, and dried up, like a piece of fruit that had been left in the sun until all the juice had been sucked out of it. And she was older than my grandmother, for fuck's sake! "Oh, leave the boy alone, Kitty," said Mrs Crawford. "Can't you see you're making him blush?" "Of course I can, Audrey," she replied. "What's the point of reaching our age if you can't have a bit of fun with a gorgeous young man?" Standing behind Miss Cooper's wheelchair, still holding the handles, Sam was trying desperately hard to stifle a laugh. He looked like he could blow at any moment, but somehow managed to hold it in. "Time for Mr Crawford's circuit," I said, releasing the brake and pushing him towards the French windows that led out into the garden. "Joseph," Mrs Crawford called after me, "you must start calling him Joseph, dear." As soon as we were outside, I turned the wheelchair onto the path that meandered around the garden and let out a sigh of relief. Miss Cooper had apparently been a looker in her day and - from the stories she'd told Sam - a real maneater. Unfortunately, she still saw herself that way. She'd never married, but had had dozens of lovers, and had prefered it that way. She used her wigs and her too-heavy make-up to try to hang on to who she had been, but it was too late. Those days were long gone. Still, as creeped out as I was by her flirting, I had to admit that at least she and Mrs Crawford still had some life in them. They were the only two in the place who did. Other than the staff, the retirement home had eight old folks in residence, all of them grey-haired, wrinkled and over seventy. There were seven women, and Mr Crawford. Apart from Mrs Crawford and Miss Cooper the women were all widows. Mrs Crawford's sister, Molly Baker, suffered from emphysema and spent most of her time wheezing away in her armchair in the communal lounge, a tube running from one nostril to the oxygen tank behind her. Mrs Crawford referred to her as her 'kid sister' but you have to wonder whether a three year age difference even matters any more when you're both closing in on eighty. Then there was Barbara Underwood, a short, mousey ex-librarian whose eyes looked enormous when she peered at up you from behind the thick, 'bottle-bottom' lenses of her spectacles, and who for some reason had difficulty keeping her dentures in so that they regularly ended up in her lap. Consuela Montez was a former professional dancer who now needed a walking frame to get around and whose hearing aid would sometimes squark alarmingly, causing her and the other old biddies to jump. It was hard not to chuckle when that happened. Finally, there were Rose Pemberton and Jane Bailey, two late-in-life lesbians who had only found each other and admitted their true sexuality after their husbands had died. "They both deeply regret all that wasted time, of course," Mrs Crawford had told me, "a lifetime of denying who they really were, but at least they've got each other now." Maybe, but they didn't exactly radiate joy. They always sat together on the communal lounge sofa, their walking sticks beside them, but they looked just as glum as Mrs Baker, Miss Underwood and Mrs Montez did. What a contrast with my sister's friends Stephanie and Francesca, who were out and proud, and could barely keep their hands off each other. Which was fine with me; I got a boner every time I saw them making out. About half-way around our circuit of the garden was a bench. Locking the wheelchair brake, I sat down gratefully, sighing when I looked at Mr Crawford's face. The old guy was drooling again. "OK, Mr Crawford...Joseph," I said, taking a tissue out of the wheelchair pouch, "let's get you cleaned up." I wiped the drool away, wincing at the grossness, and tossed it into the trash bin next to the bench. Distinguished service in Korea, an auto- repair business, raising three kids, and it all ended like this, in Alzheimer's. What was the fucking point? If it had been me I'd want someone to have put a bullet in my brain before it got to that stage, not that Mr Crawford knew what was happening to him. Soon he wouldn't even remember how to control his bladder and his bowels, and wouldn't that be fun? I was glad I'd be long gone before then and that Mrs Crawford would have to deal with it. She seemed like a nice lady and all, but rather her than me. I mean, Sammy and I shouldn't even be here now. We'd been the stars of our high school football team and should have been whisked away to college on football scholarships after graduation, but no one had shown any interest in us. We'd had the misfortune to be part of the worst team Sunny Valley High had fielded in forty years. However good you might be as an individual talent, it was difficult to improve and raise your game when you were playing with a bunch of second-raters. Like a lot of small towns Sunny Valley didn't have much going for it and so invested a lot of its pride in the school team. Though they were too polite to say it outright we knew people felt we'd let them down. The only attention we had gotten lately was the sort we could have done without, namely the firing of our coach following a sex scandal. I knew I shouldn't really still think in terms of 'we' and 'our' anymore, but fuck it. I'd left school now and wasn't part of the team anymore, but old habits die hard. And as mediocre as they'd been, as far short as they fell of the great teams of yesteryear, I really missed it. Playing football was the only thing I'd ever wanted to do. I was 18 years old and I had no idea what to do with the rest of my life. - 2 - After our shifts were over, Sam and I rode our bicycles back to my house, bikes being the only transport either of us could afford. The area where we lived was in decline, with more 'For Sale' signs out on the lawns we passed than there were buyers for those houses. With the closing of the mill two years earlier, the town's largest employer, jobs were thin on the ground and money was tight. "Man, I'll be glad when I get a car," said Sam as we rode. "With a car you can pick up chicks; with bikes like these you got no chance." "You're not wrong," I said, "but with both our Dads laid off and us not earning a penny cleaning up after the old farts in the retirement home that ain't gonna happen anytime soon." "So how long d'you reckon we'll have to keep vounteering at that dump before we get a chance at a paying job?" "Hard to say, and it's not like we can ask the qustion," I replied. "We're supposed to be doing this out of the goodness of our hearts without expecting any reward, remember? It's something for our resumes to show what selfless and civic-minded young men we are." "Yeah, right," snorted Sam. "Hey look! Looks like your sister's posse is in da house!" We had just crested the hill that led to my home and could see several cars parked outside, cars we both recognized. "Great, just great." We freewheeled down to the house, turning into the drive and parking our bikes in the carport. There was female laughter coming from the main room, a room we had to cross to get to the stairs. No sooner had we entered the house than the laughter abruptly stopped, and six pairs of eyes turned and regarded us with contempt, distain, pity and - in one case - what looked almost like fear. They were all there, sitting around the coffee table, my sister Charlotte and her friends Maria Gomez, Stephanie Spinner, Francesca Green, Justine Hampton, and Sally Shaw, the one who'd seemed almost afraid of us for some unknown reason. With the exception of Sally, they were all drop-dead gorgeous. And they knew it, too. They loved showing off their flawless teenage skin. If they wore any less they could be brought up on indecency charges. Every one of them was wearing a skimpy outfit that showed off her body to maximum effect. All those legs and cleavages and exposed midriffs made a cornucopia of firm young flesh to gladden the heart of any red-blooded male. Sam looked as if he wanted to dawdle and try to engage them in conversation, but I bundled him upstairs to my room as quickly as he could. Sam had been humiliated by them on several occasions but he still kept coming back for more. The guy was a glutton for punishment. "There was no need to rush me up here," he said reproachfully, running a hand through that thick red hair of his. "If we'd hung round we might've got to see Stephanie and Francesa making out." "Right, because obviously they'd like nothing more than to put on a show for you. Dude, get your head out of the clouds. My sister and her gang have been dissing us for years. That doesn't look like it's gonna change anytime soon." "Yeah, and it's not fair," he said. "One of the perks of being on the football team is supposed to be that you get your pick of the choicest tail your school has to offer. Except for Sally they *were* the choicest tail, and they wanted nothing to do with us. Even Sally wanted nothing to do with us, not that we were interested in her anyway, but a freak like her who looks like that should've been down on her knees and thanking God for *any* attention she could get. I blame that bitch Justine. She's their queen bee. I bet if she'd been nice to us the others would've followed suit." "Maybe," I said, "but the problems she had with Coach Williams probably didn't exactly endear the team to her." "Hey, he says she led him on, and I believe him. If she hadn't done that, and hadn't made such a fuss about it afterwards, he'd still have his job." "She was seventeen at the time and he was forty-five. Even if she did lead him on he should've resisted. She was underage, dude." "Yeah, but only by a couple of months, and nothing happened between them anyway. It was all just talk about what he *wanted* to happen." "Maybe so, but he put what he wanted to happen in letters and sent them to her. Once she leaked the letters to the press the board of trustees had no choice; they had to let him go. Which reminds me - have you heard about Justine's folks?" "What about them?" "They're divorcing. Seems Mr Hampton has been playing hide the sausage with his secretary for years and his wife found out about it. Someone sent her photos, apparently." "Seems harsh. What rich dude *isn't* banging his secretary? That's gonna be more bad news for the football team." True enough. Conrad Hampton's company owned half the remaining businesses in town, including the local newspaper. A captain of the team himself back in his school days, he had been it's major benefactor for years. If his wife's divorce lawyer took him to the cleaners that might have to change. "Wonder how Justine's handling it?" I said. She might be a grade-A bitch, but for some reason I'd always had a soft spot for Justine. It didn't hurt that she had that whole ice-cool Hitchcock blonde thing going for her either. "Yeah," said Sam, thoughtfully rubbing the crescent-shaped mole beside his right eye. "D'you think it might humble her, that maybe she and her pals would give us a chance now?" "No, dude. Whenever I overhear them speaking it's all about how they all want to find themself a rich husband and get the hell out of Dodge. Unless we get ourselves some decent-paying jobs they're not even going to look at us." "Yeah, you're probably right," he sighed. "So, how you doing at cracking the comicbook biz?" "Sent out some samples of my artwork but haven't heard back yet," I said, a little defensively. With football off the table drawing comics was my only chance to escape Sunny Valley. People who'd seen my stuff had told me I was talented, but whether I was good enough to get work at the Big Two I didn't know. We had a session on my X-box after that, which I always enjoyed since I was better at shooters than Sam and so always beat him. Winning never got old. Later, after we'd heard Charlotte's friends drive off, we went outside to shoot some hoops. We'd been at this maybe five minutes when Charlotte came outside for a cigarette. Our folks wouldn't let her smoke inside the house and she got through a pack and a half a day, so it wasn't unusual for her to end up being there whenever we were shooting hoops. "Looking good, Miss Crain," said Sam. She ignored us both, lit a cigarette, and started sending texts on her iPhone. Jeez, she'd just spent several hours jabbering away with her friends, so what could she possibly have to text them about so soon? Still, Sam was right; she did look good. But then she would, because she looked like me. Being different genders were were of course non-identical twins. Even so, Charlotte was as close to being a female version of me as it was possible to be. She was slightly shorter, and had curves where I had muscle, but we had the same dark hair and pretty much the same face. On me it was male and handsome whereas on her, particularly when she wore make-up, it was female and beautiful. Most people when wondering what they might look like as a member of the opposite sex would have to use their imagination. I just had to look at my sister. "So how are you getting on at the retirement home?" asked Charlotte, when she finally finished texting. "Oh so you're talking to us now?" I said. "Hey, if you'd prefer I didn't...." "No, wait," said Sam as she turned to leave. "It's going OK. Thank's for asking, Char." "Yeah, OK if you don't mind wiping up after farty old people who smell of mothballs and piss," I said. "That's unfair," said Charlotte. "They can't help being old." "Never said they could," I replied, "but I still don't see how what we're being taught there is supposed to help us get jobs. All I'm learning is how to deal with all the shit you have to do to take care of someone with Alzheimers. How is that going to prepare me for a job?" "You'd be surprised," she said, taking a long drag on her cigarette. "When I volunteered at the retirement home it changed me. It made me a better person. And having that experience on my resume got me a job with Conrad Hampton's company. That's why I recommended you both volunteer there yourselves." "I thought you got that job because the boss's daughter is one of your best friends," said Sam. "It doesn't work like that," she said, looking annoyed. "You get a job there on merit, not just because of who you know." "Then it works differently than most places on the planet," I said. "Fine, think what you like," she said, "but volunteering there is still going to give you two assholes your best shot at finding a job." - 3 - "Coffee, dear?" asked Mrs Crawford. "Yes, thanks," I said. Mrs Crawford making us both a cup of coffee at the start of my shift had become almost a ritual now, but she made a killer cup of joe so I wasn't complaining. Plus, it gave me time to ogle Nurse Lumley. Quite what someone like her was doing working in a place like this was something Sam and I had hotly debated without arriving at a satisfactory answer. The thing was, Nurse Lumley looked like a porn star. She always wore five inch stiletto heels,and a tight and tiny white outfit with a skirt so short that when she bent over you could see the bottom of her butt cheeks, while at the front it was always unbuttoned enough to display her seriously impressive cleavage in all its glory. She had long, silver- blonde hair, full red lips with a thick, natural pout, and what can only be described as 'come-to-bed' eyes. When she talked to you it was in this breathy, porn star voice that made even a simple "Hello" sound like an invitation to push her up against a wall and have your way with her right then and there. She was wasted on a place full of little old ladies. "Time for my morning contitutional, Samuel, darling," said Miss Cooper, patting the purse on her lap. I knew what that pat meant. Miss Cooper kept a flask of whiskey in her purse and shared it with Sam on their circuits of the garden. Since I only got coffee I guess he had the best of the deal there. As Sammy grasped the wheelchair handles and turned it towards the French doors, she winked at me. "See you later, handsome!" she said. I shuddered, and returned to my contemplation of Nurse Lumley's magnificent ass until Mrs Crawford returned with our coffees. "Here you go, dear," she said, handing me a mug, her hands trembling as they always did. She had apparently once been a seamstress, but the trembling meant she no longer had the fine motor control needed for sewing. "Thanks," I said, taking it and savoring the smell. She called it 'blue mountain', but whatever brand it was it was delicious. Mr Crawford was off getting his regular physical therapy, the staff manipulating his arms and legs to try to slow muscle wastage and other stuff like that. On mornings when that happened I mostly got to chat with Mrs Crawford, and that could be quite interesting. Oh, not when she filled me in on all the various medications she had to take, insisting I memorize them all and parrot back to her what each was for, or when she talked about her incontinence knickers and which were the most comfortable and absorbent pads to use with them. No, she was most interesting when she reminisceded about the old days and what life was like for a young woman in the early fifties. Today, however, she wanted to talk about her fellow inmates. "Poor Molly," she said, watching her sister wheezing away in her armchair, "but she has no one to blame but herself. That's what a lifetime of heavy smoking does to you. I thought she might serve as a warning to your sister when she was here, but it didn't have any effect on her own desire to smoke, did it?" "No," I admitted. "She's still puffing away and she's shown no interest in quitting. So what do you think about Mrs Pemberton and Mrs Bailey?" "How do you mean, dear?" "Well they're lesbians, who found each other in later life, right? So how come they're never very affectionate with each other and don't seem happier?" "Oh, I'm sure Rose and Jane are happy enough. It's just that our generation doesn't go in for ostentatious displays of public affection the way yours does. We prefer to keep such things behind closed doors. If they were your age they'd probably be very affectionate in public. Didn't you tell me that a pair of your sister's friends are a lesbian couple? Are they like that?" "Yes, and yes they are. Very. Maybe it *is* a generational thing at that." Mrs Crawford then told me about various scandalous things the other old ladies had done when they were young. I guess when you're stuck together in a home like that and have all that time to kill you're going to share confidences. Not that I ever witnessed anything like that when I was there. No, all they seemed to do was sit in their chairs and watch daytime soaps on the communal lounge TV, waiting to die. What an existence. I shuddered at the thought of having all your horizons, everything you'd seen and done, shrink down to that. "Ah, Sam and Kitty are back!" said Mrs Crawford, as our prodigals returned. To my great surprise, Sam parked Miss Cooper in her usual spot, hooked a finger into the belt of my jeans, and asked : "Do you mind if I borrow Carl for a few minutes, Mrs Crawford." "No, you go ahead, dear." "Thanks, Mrs C! You're the best." I offered no resistance as I was led out through the French doors and around the side of the building, but I was startled when Sam threw me up against the wall. "Sam, what..." I began, only to be silenced by a finger placed over my lips. "Shut up, Carl. Just shut up and kiss me." I didn't need to be asked twice. I took Sam in my arms and we kissed like I'd never kissed anyone before. I'd been fantasizing about this for years and I still couldn't quite believe it was happening, couldn't quite believe how good it felt to have Sam's body grinding into mine like that, how amazing it felt to have her breasts crushed up against my chest. "Wow, Samantha!" I said when we came up for air. "Not that that wasn't wonderful and something I've wanted to do for years an' all, but why now? You're the first one of Charlotte's friends who's ever given me the time of day." "It was working next to you these past weeks," she said, smiling up at me. "I started to see you in a new light. But nevermind that, now. There's something we need to do." So saying she took my hand and led me off along the path that circled the garden. She looked amazing in her three inch heels, spray-on denims and white blouse, which was knotted up under her breasts so as to leave her tiny midriff bare. Her thick red hair cascaded down over her shoulders and she was wearing large, hoop earings and loads of thin silver bracelets on each wrist. I knew where we were going before there - the bench. It had the advantage of being out of sight of the main building and I assumed we were going to get down to some serious face-on-face action. Sam had other ideas. "Take your clothes off," she said, as she started to peel off her own garments. "Say what?" I said, uncomprehending. "Sex is more comfortable when we're naked," she said. Sex. We were going to having sex. I don't think I've ever undressed so quickly. A park bench isn't the most comfortable place to do it, but I didn't care. All that mattered was I was doing it with Samantha Jonas. I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven. Not that there was much lying around cuddling after we'd done the deed. "OK, we need to get dressed and get back," said Sam as we hurriedly put our clothes back on. "We told Mrs Crawford we'd only be gone a few minutes and it's been half an hour." "She won't mind," I said, not actually knowing whether or not she would. As it turned out I was right. "Did you enjoy yourselves, dears?" she asked when we returned, giving me a knowing look. "Very much," said Sam. "Thank you, Mrs Crawford. How's Miss Cooper been while we were gone?" "See for yourself." I glanced over to where her wheeelchair was parked, facing the TV. She looked the same as she always did, as glum and apathetic as all the others. Hard to believe she'd been a maneater back in the day and had had a string of lovers Our ride home took longer than usual because we kept stopping to lock lips and generally feel the other up. We could barely keep our hands off each other. I'd never had anyone want me that much before, and I really, really liked it. However, when we got to the crest of the hill that overlooked my house that had to stop. "We can't let Charlotte or the others know, especially Justine," said Sam, "but I want to have sex with you as often as we can arrange it." "Sounds like a plan," I croaked. "Good. Then I'll see you tomorrow. 'Bye, lover." She leaned in for a kiss and I took her face in my hands, caressing it and tracing the crescent-shaped mole under her right eye with my thumb. Then she was gone, kicking off and speeding down the hill, pedalling ferociously and laughing the whole way. She shot past my house and vanished around the bend at the bottom, heading for her own home. I freewheeled down the hill and into our carport in a daze a dopey grin on my face. Not even a saracastic comment from my sister as I went upstairs could dislodge it. - 4 - "Coffee, dear?" asked Mrs Crawford. "Yes, thanks," I said. This was my final day of the volunteering I'd signed up for and Mrs Crawford had asked me to come in early, so we were the only two in the common room. Sam had finished up two days ago and I really missed having her there with me. It had been a week since we'd first hooked up, a week filled with lots of furtive sex made even more exciting by us having to keep it from Charlotte and the rest of her posse. I sometimes wondered when they would start getting suspicious as to why Sam was blowing them off so much lately but, really, I was having too much fun to worry about it. Just thinking about her and about fondling her magnificent tits again made me grin like an idiot. It was early days, I knew, but I wondered if maybe this was what love felt like. If it wasn't, I was pretty sure it could grow into love. Sam had been unavailable the last two days, but I was determined to speak to her tonight and to tell her how I felt. "Here you go, dear," said Mrs Crawford, returning with our coffees and handing me mine. I chugged it down eagerly. So, I noticed, did Mrs Crawford. That's when I started to feel weird. "Whoa, that's...I...what's happening?" Before my eyes Mrs Crawford was beginning to change, grey hair growing darker and longer, her wrinkles fading away as she grew younger, like one of those slideshow morphs they make from photographs taken of someone down the years. Nor was she the only one changing. I could feel myself growing shorter, weaker, older, my butt expanding and my tight six-pack abs becoming looser and flabbier as they vanished beneath rolls of fat. Breasts bloomed beneath my shirt, quickly sagging along with my ass as age and gravity took their toll. I watched in horror as my hands aged, liver spots marching across them as they wrinkled and grew claw-like. It was when they started to tremble that I finally realized what was happening. Panicking, I rushed over to the wall mirror and gazed into it, the frightened face of Mrs Crawford gazing back at me. Stunned, I raised a boney hand to my face, feeling that aged, powdered skin, then ran trembling fingers through my permed and blue-rinsed hair, the old woman in the mirror mimicking my every move. This was not a dream. Horribly, impossibly, this was real. All my joints ached. The energy of youth had left me, and I felt enormously tired. A glance downwards revealed that even my clothes had changed. Somehow, I was now wearing a sleeveless floral print dress, thick grey pantihose and fur-trimmed slippers, the very clothes Mrs Crawford had been wearing just seconds ago. "Wow, I knew what to expect, of course," said a young female voice, sounding delighted, "but nothing prepares you for what the transformation feels like. What a rush!" I turned, to be confronted by a familiar figure wearing cowboy boots with two inch heels, and a figure-hugging white minidress. "Charlotte?" I said, hearing Mrs Crawford's quivering, old lady voice come from my mouth for the first time. "No," she said, laughing. "Not Charlotte - Carla." "I don't understand," I said, still stunned by the enormity of what had happened, fighting back tears. "When your identical twin brother became Molly and she became a female version of him the result was Charlotte. Now I've become a female version of you I'm *her* identical twin sister, of course. We've always been close, but being twins should bring us closer together than ever." "But I never had a twin brother!" I protested. "Yes you did," said Carla, running her hands over her hips appreciatively. "Charlotte took his place two months ago and neither you nor your parents, nor anyone else in the world for that matter, remembers he ever existed. When we pull the switch reality itself alters to accomodate the change so that that's now the way things have always been. So far as your parents remember they've always had twin daughters, and every record and photograph they own will now reflect that reality. Nor were you two the only ones who got switched. Have you ever noticed how, with the exception of Sally, your sister and her friends all have names that are female versions of male names? Charlotte, Justine, Maria, Francesca, Stephanie...and Samantha." "Charlie, Justin, Mario, Frank, Stephen, and Samuel," I said, voice breaking. "Seven, including me." "Or to give you your new names: Molly Baker, Barbara Underwood, Consuela Montez, Jane Bailey, Rose Pemberton, Kitty Cooper, and Audrey Crawford, respectively. You were teenage boys; now you're old women." As guys they had probably all been my friends, but I didn't remember any of them. "Why, why would you do this to us?" "Last year, I was approached by a mysterious young woman who claimed she possessed a spell designed to work on a woman and a man at least fifty years her junior. This spell would turn him into her, her into a female version of him, and prevent him from revealing he had ever been anyone else. I didn't believe her, of course, but she showed me something to demonstrate that magic existed. She then offered me what looked like a tiny bottle of eye-drops which contained what she called 'the Tears of Athanasia'. One drop in a drink shared by the young man and old woman - in, for example, a pot of coffee or a flask of whiskey - was all that was needed. "I was sorely tempted. I mean, what woman my age wouldn't want to regain her youth? But I couldn't see myself doing that to an innocent young man, so I refused. She told me how to get in touch with her if I should change my mind, but I didn't imagine I would. How wrong I was. Six weeks later I contacted her to say that Molly, Barbara, and I would all like to take her up on her offer, that we'd found seven guys who deserved to have this happen to them if she knew of four other old women looking for someone to take their places. She did. I also needed for us all to be able to remember how things had been when reality changed. She agreed to this. Consuela wanted to dance again, Jane and Rose to have the life together they'd found each other too late to enjoy, and Kitty to once more make love to lots of young men. I wasn't happy about her hooking up with you. She's too good for you - any woman's too good for you - but she couldn't wait to try out her hot young body and thought it would be a waste not to take advantage of your youth and your maleness while you still had them. Fortunately, she's already moved on. She spent the last couple of days with one of Maria's male dancer friends." "I...I thought we had something real," I said, choking up. "Now you know better," she replied, coldly. "Together, the seven of us set up this retirement home as part of our plan." "What could me and the others possibly have done to deserve *this*?" I shouted, tearily. "Sally Shaw," she said. "You deserve it because of what you did to Sally Shaw. "Sally Shaw?" I said, puzzled. "I never did anything to that freak." "'Freak'? Yes, I suppose to you and your jock buddies that's exactly what she was. You saw a plain, socially awkward, nerdy girl and from your priveleged position I'm sure you thought you could do whatever you wanted to her and get away with it. Sadly, you were right. Sally was a happy, caring, intelligent girl who unfortunately was also naive. You knew she had a crush on you so you took advantage of that to lure her out to that field where your teammates lay in wait. That she was a virgin meant nothing to you as the seven of you took it in turns to rape her. She tried to get away but what chance did a slightly built girl have against the brutes on the football team? You left her there sobbing in the dirt, her clothes torn and bloody. When she reported the gang rape you said it was consensual, spreading the word around the school that she was a slut who'd begged you for it and how you'd done her a favor, that someone like her should be grateful hot guys like you and your friends had paid any attention to her at all. The school in general and the coach in particular stood behind you. You'd made the state finals and no one wanted a scandal." "We made the state finals?!" I said in disbelief. "*That's* what you're taking away from what I just told you? Jeez, you really are a piece of work, aren't you? The case never came to trial. Conrad Hampton couldn't have his only child, the golden boy, on trial accused of being a rapist, so he used the town newspaper to put pressure on Sally and her parents, to blacken her name and issue veiled threats. Where she'd once been a happy, outgoing girl she now began cutting herself. Twice she tried committing suicide. You ask what you could possibly have done to deserve this? *That's* what you did to deserve it." "But I don't remember doing that!" I protested. "I don't care. What matters is that *we* remember." "Why do you care so much about what happened to Sally?" "Because she's my granddaughter, you little shit! Her mother is my daughter. And her father is Barbara's son. When we set up the home we invited Conrad to open it and suggested his son might like to attend too. When they came we gave them coffee. Conrad's was poured first, then Barbara and Justin's after a single drop of the Tears of Athanasia had been added to the pot. That was our first substitution. Conrad departed with his daughter Justine, never knowing he had arrived with a son, one who, like him, had been captain of the school football team. Justin remained behind with us to live out the rest of his now much-reduced days as Mrs Barbara Underwood, an elderly widow with failing eyesight. After that it was easy to reel in the rest of you one-by-one. As each one of you was removed so someone less talented took his place on the football team and it fell further and further down the rankings." "We'd reached the state finals," I said, appalled. "You took that away from the town." "You think I care?" said Carla, incredulous. "It's just a damn game, one people in this country care far too much about. If doing so would prevent even one girl from having to endure what Sally did I'd happily bring the whole stinking edifice of football crashing down. Fortunately, as each one of you was removed so the severity of the rape lessened until it hadn't happened to her at all, yet on some deep level Sally still remembered it, still feared you and Sam, though she could not have told you why. Now you've been replaced, the last of her rapists, she should be back to being the girl she was before you destroyed her. Better, in fact. Because now she was always in with the popular girls, with us. All seven of us are now eighteen again, with our whole lives ahead of us. But we will always look out for her and protect her." She paused to admire herself in the mirror, running an appreciative hand over her flat young midriff before continuing. "You weren't the only ones who needed to be punished, of course. There were also Conrad Hampton and Coach Williams. They were Jasmine's responsibility. It was easy for her to lead the coach on and then claim he'd been the one leading her on. And to protect his beloved daughter, Conrad destroyed him in the press too, of course, never knowing he was her next target. Having been cheated on by her first husband, Harry Shaw - Sally's grandfather - Jasmine knew Conrad was cheating on his wife. She recognized the signs. It was easy for her to then follow Conrad and surreptitiously photograph him with his mistress. Anonymously mailing those photos to her mother had the predictable effect. In their divorce she should take him to the cleaners. Not that that's punishment enough in his case. He's forty-five years old, and we still have some of the Tears of Athanasia left. So we're looking for a ninety-five year old who wants to be forty-five again. I'm sure we'll find her. Expect a new resident to join you and the little old ladies here soon." "What...what about you?" "I'm going home now to my parents and my sister. Charlotte and I are planning to travel the world for a while, two young women looking for a good time. I'm sure we'll have several holiday romances along the way. I'm really looking forward to having sex with hot young men. So this is goodbye. We won't see each other again. This will be your home from now on, Audrey, but don't worry. I taught you all the skills you'll need." "'Skills'?" I said, not understanding. "What skills?" "The skills you need to look after Joseph, your husband," she said. "I...I just can't do it anymore. I loved him dearly, but the man I loved is not in there anymore. He's gone. It will be your responsibilty from now on to care for what's left of him." She gave me a final, pitying look, then turned on her heel and left, slipping past the old women who were shuffling into the lounge to take their accustomed places for another meaningless day, waiting for death. I looked at each of them in turn trying to remember the friends I'd lost, trying and failing to see any sign of the teenage boys they used to be. I was one of them now. And I wanted to scream. * Epilogue: "Here, let me help you with that," purred Nurse Lumley breathily, as she fluffed up the cushion and eased her charge forward in the armchair to drop it in behind her. This gave Mrs Underwood a view deep into her cleavage, just as Nurse Lumley intended it should. She could feel the eyes of the other old ladies on her too, feel their longing and their frustration. The knowledge that women like her were now forever out of reach fed their despair at their situation, just as she had intended it should. That was why she had taken this form in the first place. As the Goddess of Despair she fed on theirs. It nourished and strengthened her like nothing else could. She savored every delicious morsel of it. Eventually they would reach some level of resigned acceptance of their condition and it would then be time for her to move on, but for now they were a feast. Though one of the first to physically manifest on the mortal plane this time, she was a minor deity. Where other Gods had sent mystical artifacts out into the world to gether the particular energies they needed she as yet had only the one reality spell, powered by her tears, that would turn a young man into an old woman, and that old woman into a female version of the young man. Yet it sufficed. She could not force anyone to use the spell, but there had been no shortage of women desperate to regain their youth and prepared to steal it from a young man. Such were the gifts of the Gods. They were never without price, a price that someone would have to pay. She was puzzled by Audrey Crawford and her friends needing for the young men they swapped with to 'deserve' what happened to them, however. Ideas like that, of morality and of right and wrong, were puzzling mortal conceits that were meaningless to the Gods, but she was happy to indulge such bizarre concepts if it got her what she needed. The stars were coming into a new alignment. After all those long, long millennia the age of magic was finally returning. Soon it would be time for she and her fellow Gods to once again assume dominion over the mortals who teemed across this verdant world, to relieve them of the burden of free will and to use them as the playthings they were always meant to be. She could hardly wait. The End ***************** Notes: It's said that ideas are easy and writing is hard. This is true. But sometimes, just sometimes, a story flows out of you so effortlessly that that writing it doesn't feel like work at all. This was one of those. I wish it happened more often. Having already described in detail the protagonist's horror at suddenly finding himself an old woman in my story 'The Landlady' and what it felt like decided not to repeat myself here. Also, the focus of this story is not the same as that one. Below is the reference I started with and had to hand the whole time I was writing this one. It was the easiest way to keep the characters straight. Carl = Carla Crain Mrs Audrey Crawford (Joseph) - protagonist Charlie= Charlotte Crain Mrs Molly Baker - twin sister Sam = Samantha Jonas Miss Kitty Cooper - girlfriend Justin = Justine Hampton Mrs Barbara Underwood - rich girl Mario = Maria Gomez Mrs Consuela Montez - dancer Stephen=Stephanie Spinner Mrs Rose Pemberton - lesbian Frank = Francesca Green Mrs Jane Bailey - lesbian