The bell over the front door of the Magic Box jingled as Buffy opened it. She and Faith were back on their leashes and leading Xander into the shop, just a few minutes after its closing time. She and Faith were both dressed in short, pleated skirts (with no underwear) and tiny t-shirts, that were a couple of sizes too small for them.
Anya was busy counting the cash from the register, and Giles, Willow and Tara were seated around the table at the back of the shop, with stacks of books, and scores of pages of loose notes.
Xander went to the counter, and leaned across it to kiss Anya hello. “Have a good day?” he asked.
“Sales were a bit slow, today,” said Anya. “Monday does not seem to be a popular day for shopping.” She slipped the money she’d counted into a night deposit bag for the bank, and wrote down the total in a ledger.
“Faith!” called Anya.
Faith immediately perked to attention. “Yes, Mistress?”
Anya handed the bag to her. “Take this to the bank, and be quick about it!”
Faith’s leash flashed into non-existence. “Right away, Mistress!”
Buffy was a little disappointed that the order hadn’t been given to her, but Faith was the one who was on the Magic Box payroll, and Giles insisted that any tasks that Anya ordered either of them to do for the shop had to be paid for. Still, she had a nice look at Faith’s ass as her skirt flipped up on her way out the door.
It took Xander a couple of seconds to recover from seeing the same thing before he turned his attention back to the group around the table. “So, Giles. Any luck on the research front?”
“We’ve been looking into these Knights of Byzantium, and their ‘Key’,” said Giles, “And we’ve learned a few things.”
“Like what?” asked Buffy.
“The Key is an artifact of unimaginable power,” said Giles. “The Monks of Dagon, and the Knights of Byzantium were once united, dedicated to its protection, but something happened about a thousand years ago that caused a rupture in their order. Some of them believed that the Key could be used as a force for good. Others felt that it represented too great a risk: if it fell into the wrong hands, it could be used for evil. The ones who believed that the Key’s power could be harnessed for the forces of good became the Order of Dagon. Those that believed it was too dangerous to exist became the Knights of Byzantium, and they’ve been at odds, ever since.”
“Is there anything to say who’s right?” asked Buffy.
“Not really,” said Giles. “Both sides seem to have legitimate positions.”
“But we haven’t been attacked by any monks wielding swords,” said Buffy. “The only monk we’ve seen had been tied up and tortured by this Beast.”
“Anything else on the Beast?” asked Xander.
“No, but there was an outbreak of some sort of mental illness in Sunnydale, starting a couple of months ago,” said Willow. “Three or four people a week were suddenly going crazy, without any previous history of mental illness.”
“Axe-murderer crazy, or something else?” asked Buffy.
“Mostly non-violent, incoherent babbling crazy,” said Willow, “but that seems to have stopped a couple of weeks ago. There haven’t been any new cases since the middle of October, and people seem to be slowly recovering now.”
“October? That’s when we killed the Lei-ach clan. Could they have had something to do with it?”
“Unlikely,” said Giles. “The Lei-ach are marrow suckers, not mind-suckers.”
“If these monks did send me the Key, hidden in some way, is there any way to detect it?” asked Buffy.
Giles consulted his notes. “The Key is an energy matrix vibrating at a dimensional frequency beyond normal human perception. Only those outside reality can see the Key’s true nature.”
“What’s that mean?” asked Xander.
“People gifted with psychic perception,” said Giles, “or sometimes the mentally ill.”
“Maybe that’s why the Beast was creating all those crazy people,” said Xander. “To have them look for the Key, and it found it, which is why it left town.”
“I hope not, because all indications are that the Beast using the Key could by a truly cataclysmic event,” said Giles.
“Any other way to find it, besides second-sight types, and crazy people?” asked Anya.
“Well, it is also supposed to be perceptible the necromanced animals, particularly snakes and dogs,” said Giles.
“Wait,” said Tara. “You said that people outside reality can see the Key.”
“Yes,” said Giles.
“You know a seer?” asked Willow.
“No, but what if we moved outside of reality,” said Tara.
“What do you mean?” asked Xander.
“Would the Key be perceptible from an astral plain?”
“Oh!” Willow bounced up and down in her seat. “Oh! Oh! Oh!”
“You’ve thought of something we can use to find the Key?” asked Xander.
“No!” said Willow. “A way to test the Reward!”
Faith felt a rise in Buffy’s level of agitation as she ran back to the Magic Box from the bank, so she put on an extra burst of speed. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but something was making Buffy nervous.
She burst through the front door, and looked quickly around the shop, trying to identify any threats. There wasn’t anyone unexpected present. The Scoobies were all clustered around the round table at the back of the store.
“I’m sure it will work, and it’s not like we’re trying to break the Reward, or anything like that,” said Willow, “so it shouldn’t cause any bad side effects.”
“What’s she talking about?” asked Faith.
“Willow thinks that if we can move ourselves to an astral plain, it will temporarily negate some parts of the Reward,” said Anya.
Faith now understood what had worried Buffy. It worried her too. “What parts, and what does she mean by ‘temporary’?”
“In the higher realms, most forms of magical compulsion are negated,” said Willow. “You also won’t be able to knowingly tell a lie, so if we can move your spirits there, you will be able to honestly say how you really feel about the Reward, without any outside influence, but that will only be true while you are in that realm. As soon as your spirits return to your bodies, the Reward compulsions will return.”
“So, it won’t make everyone suddenly remember that I’m still supposed to be in jail?” asked Faith.
“Not unless they go with you to the astral realm,” said Tara. “It will only affect the spirits of those who go.”
“You’re not going?” asked Buffy.
“If we do send novices into the astral plains, some of us will have to stay behind, to keep you grounded, and help you to find your way back to bodies, if you go astray.” Tara glanced aside to Willow. “I think it should be me and Anya who do that.”
“Why me?” asked Anya.
“Buffy, Faith and Xander are the ones directly affected by the Reward, so if we’re going to do this, they should go. They’ll need Willow’s power to help them ascend, and she’s the one with the most doubts about the Reward. And I think that Giles should go too, as an objective observer.”
Giles took off his glasses, and started to polish their lenses. “I’m not sure how objective I’ll be.”
“I think, of the people here, you are probably the most objective,” said Xander. “Are you sure that this is safe? It’s not going to trigger any backlash against Buffy and Faith?”
Giles shook his head, and put his glasses back on. “I shouldn’t think so. Gimmel seems to have been quite thorough in his execution of this Reward, even if he overlooked Faith’s status as a Slayer. Buffy and Faith have progressed so well in their meditation practice that I had already planned to teach them astral projection. It can be a quite useful tool for a Slayer, though few have mastered it. I have even begun teaching them some of the preparatory techniques. I suspect that if the Reward could really be rejected that easily, it never would have occurred to me to begin such training. Quite the contrary, my already having begun their training for this may be another example of your extraordinary luck manifesting.”
“The last time you started talking about my extraordinary luck, Joyce got sick.”
“Precisely,” said Giles. “And think of the rather unlikely chain of events that followed, leading to the detection of her tumour — possibly weeks earlier than might have ordinarily been the case — allowing it to be excised with a relatively minor operation. I heard her doctors say that she was extremely fortunate that they managed to catch it as early as they did.”
“Huh,” Xander blinked a few times. “I never thought of it that way.”
“Indeed, this may even help you to further accept your Reward,” said Giles. “If Buffy and Faith can honestly tell you how they truly feel about the Reward, it may serve to allay any lingering doubts you may have.”
Xander glanced between Faith and Buffy, and Faith hoped that he wasn’t going to ask them to make this decision. This sort of thing was his responsibility, now. “How do you feel about this?” he asked.
That was alright; finding out how they felt was something that he should do, before making his decision.
“A little nervous,” said Buffy.
“Me too,” said Faith. “But a little hopeful too. If this can help to remove everyone else’s doubts…” She looked directly at Willow. “…then that would be a good thing.”
Xander nodded. “Okay, then. I think we should do this.”
It wasn’t quite that simple. Xander had little practice with any form of meditation, and Giles thought that he needed some additional preparation. He also felt that it would be best, considering the one form of meditation that Xander had practiced, if that preparation took place away from the Magic Box. It was decided that Xander would go home with Anya, Faith, and Buffy to prepare himself, while Giles, Willow, and Tara stayed at the Magic Box to get things ready there.
Xander sent Buffy and Faith ahead to prepare things at their apartment, while he and Anya took a more leisurely walk home. When they did get home, and went upstairs to their bedroom, they found that the bed had been stripped of its usual bedding, and instead was covered with white cotton sheets. The room was darkened, and lit by candles. Soothing instrumental music was playing. Buffy and Faith were naked, and kneeling on either side of the bed, with their heads bowed.
Anya looked around at their preparations, and nodded her head in approval. “Very well done,” she said. “You may undress us now.”
“Yes, Mistress,” said Buffy and Faith together, and they both rose smoothly to their feet, and came to their Lord and Mistress. They quickly and efficiently removed all of their clothes, folded them, and set them aside.
From there they went into the bathroom. Faith stepped into the shower, and started the water running, while Buffy pinned up Anya’s hair, to keep it from getting wet. When Faith reported that the water was running at the proper temperature, Xander, Anya, and Buffy joined her in the shower, and Buffy and Faith took up the spray wands, and turned them on. They used the wands to wet down Xander and Anya’s bodies, and then they soaped them both down with liquid body-wash. They used their hands to thoroughly clean their Lord, and Mistress, but without any of the sort of additional sexual play that usually accompanied the showers that they all shared. Buffy and Faith seemed to not even notice that Xander’s cock was standing erect while they washed it.
After the soap had been rinsed from their bodies, and Buffy and Faith had towelled them dry, they all returned to the bedroom, and Xander and Anya lay down on their stomachs on the bed. Xander lay with his head turned toward Anya, so he could watch her, and he could see Buffy crawl onto the bed on the other side of her. He could feel Faith on the bed beside him. He saw Buffy reach for the bowl of oil sitting on top of Anya’s bedside table, dip her hand into it, and dribble oil across Anya’s bare shoulders. He could feel the oil that Faith was dribbling onto his shoulders.
Faith and Buffy dribbled more oil down Xander and Anya’s backs, across their buttocks, and down their legs. And then both of them moved to straddle their Lord and Mistess’s backs, and began a slow, gentle massage of their shoulders. Both of them kept most of their weight off the receivers of their massage, instead supporting most of their weight with their own thigh muscles.
Xander concentrated on his breathing, keeping it slow and steady, and in rhythm with the movement of Faith’s hands as she moved out from his shoulders, to massage his arms. He could see that Buffy was moving in perfect synchronization with Faith as she massaged Anya.
After finishing with their arms, the two Slayers returned their attention to Xander and Anya’s shoulders, and necks, before slowly worked their way down their backs, their strong hands giving them both a deep, soothing massage, lulling them both into a deep relaxation.
Xander concentrated on his breathing, the feel of Faith’s hands moving over him, and staying relaxed, as she moved farther down his body, her hands rubbing his butt, and even running down the crack between his ass-cheeks, across his anus, and gently over his balls. He was almost completely relaxed now. In fact there was only one bit of his anatomy that wasn’t feeling completely flaccid. Despite his attempt to completely ignore it, his cock was rock hard.
Faith kept moving down his body, massaging his thighs, the backs of his knees, his calves, and the soles of his feet, finishing up by giving each of his toes some individual attention. When she was done with his feet, she shifted to moving quickly back up his body. This time using just her finger tips, tapping them lightly and quickly across him, feeling almost like gentle rain drops hitting his skin. He watched Buffy doing the same with Anya.
Faith and Buffy moved away from Xander and Anya, and placed pillows beside where their heads were resting on the bed. Xander and Anya both rolled over onto their backs, using the pillows to prop up their heads, and shoulders so that they could both look comfortably down along their bodies. Xander could see his hard cock straining upwards toward the bedroom ceiling.
Buffy and Faith traded places. This time it was Buffy who dribbled oil across Xander’s chest, his stomach, over his cock, and down his legs. She straddled his stomach, and began the massage again, starting with his chest.
When she moved down so that she was straddling his hips, Buffy lightly rested her pussy slit along the top of his cock, but she didn’t put any of her weight on it, nor did she move to rub herself against him. She almost seemed not to notice, but he did see a slight smile tug at the corners of her mouth, momentarily replacing the completely serene expression she had been maintaining. Xander put some extra effort into keeping his concentration on his breathing, and resisted the urge to rock his own hips up against her.
Buffy moved farther down, to straddle his thighs, and massage his hips. She also ran one hand up, and around his cock, including it in her massage of him, but not lingering there long enough to overcome his self control, before moving on down his legs.
After reaching his toes again, Buffy took hold of Xander’s feet, and gently pulled them apart, spreading his legs. She crawled up between them, and reached for her bowl of oil again, getting more on her hands, and dribbling it down over his cock.
Her hands went around his cock, and she slowly began stroking him. Xander looked over at Anya, with Faith kneeling between her legs, and slowly pumping her fingers into Anya’s pussy, her movements still perfectly synchronized with Buffy’s.
Xander still concentrated on his breathing, and relaxation as Buffy slowly stroked his cock. He breathed in as her hand moved up it, and out as she moved down. Her other hand was cupping his balls, with her finger tips rubbing against his perineum, with the same slow rhythm.
Xander stayed relaxed, just enjoying the feel of Buffy stroking him, right up to the moment of his orgasm. Only then did he allow himself to tense, and then only with his perineal muscle to keep himself from ejaculating. He felt the jolt of pleasure shoot up his spine, and his breathing hiccuped for a moment, before returning to its steady rhythm. He saw another brief smile flicker across Buffy’s face, but she never broke the rhythm of her hands moving on his cock.
Xander came several more times, each time managing to withhold his ejaculation, before Buffy finally released his cock, and moved back beside him. She helped him to sit up, and turn toward Anya. Faith was helping Anya up, and moved her toward Xander. Xander sat with his legs crossed on the bed, as Faith brought Anya to him. Faith and Buffy both helped support Anya as she wrapped her legs around his waist, and then lowered her down, with her pussy enveloping his cock.
They sat together like that, neither of them moving, with their arms wrapped around each other. Xander could feel Anya’s warm, wet pussy gently clasping him as they synchronized their breathing, and just looked into each other’s eyes. Buffy and Faith knelt behind them, and once again started giving their backs slow, steady massages.
Xander didn’t know how long they stayed together like that. Afterward, he might have joked that his cock had stayed hard long enough that he was encroaching on the warning time from a Viagra commercial, but he never had any thoughts like that at the time. His only thought was about how wonderful Anya felt as he held her, and she held him, and the sublime pleasure of Fuffy massaging them. They didn’t start to become aware of the greater world again until they heard a soft chiming sound.
“Lord, Lady, it’s time,” said Baith.
Anya took a deep breath. “Thank you, slaves.” She smiled at Xander, and then started to grind her hips against him.
That was really all it took to trigger an intense orgasm for both of them, and this time Xander didn’t constrain himself. He let himself fully come into Anya’s pussy.
Buffy and Faith had to help them both disentangle themselves from each other after it was over, and to support them as they made their way back into the bathroom for another shower, to clean off the oil that was coating all of their bodies. This time the shower was a bit more playful, but they were on a tight schedule if they were going to get back to the Magic Box by midnight.
They were all dressed for maximum comfort when they returned to the Magic Box. Xander and Anya were wearing loose fitting, light cotton shirts, and pants, and Buffy and Faith were dressed in loose silk outfits that almost looked like pyjamas. Buffy was surprised by how calm, and relaxed she felt. Despite having spent a couple of hours naked, in close physical contact with her Lord and Mistress, and actually stroking him into multiple orgasms while she and Faith hadn’t had any, she didn’t feel any sort of sexual frustration. She felt as calm and fulfilled as she knew Xander and Anya did. Her link with Faith had been fully open during the entire experience as well, so she knew that Faith felt the same way.
Giles, Willow and Tara were ready and waiting for them in the training room. They had laid out a circle, drawn with salt on the matts on the training room floor, surrounding a five pointed star. Inside each point of the star sat a large, white candle, which provided the only light. Xander was directed to sit at one point—inside the circle—with Buffy on his left and Faith on his right, and across from Giles and Willow. Willow, Buffy and Faith all sat in a lotus pose, which Xander and Giles approximated with crossed legs and their hands resting on their knees, with their palms upturned. Anya and Tara sat outside the circle, also in the lotus position.
They began to chant “The inward eye, the sightless sea. Ayala flows through the river in me” over and over. Buffy and Faith put themselves into the meditative state that they had been practicing for weeks, and she could tell that Xander was returning to the state that he had been in with Anya during their massage session. The room flared around them, suddenly filling with light that wasn’t coming from the candles. It seemed to be emanating from the room itself, and everything in it.
Tara and Anya seemed to be frozen in their places outside the circle, even more motionless than they had been a moment before.
Willow let out an “Eep!” and her hands moved quickly to cover herself. It was only then that Buffy noticed that all of their clothes seemed to have vanished too. Xander’s hands moved almost as fast, to cup over his crotch, as did Giles’, but he didn’t move fast enough to keep her from seeing that her mother’s memories of just how well endowed he was weren’t exaggerated. She and Faith remained sitting in their lotus positions, without moving.
“So, is this it?” asked Faith. “Are we astral now?”
“Um, yeah,” said Willow. “I should have remembered the naked bit.”
“I remembered, but felt it best not to remind anyone about it,” said Giles. “It was imperative to keep our anxiety level down, if we were going to succeed.”
“So, did we succeed?” asked Xander. “Are the Reward compulsions gone?” He looked from Buffy to Faith.
Buffy didn’t think that she felt any different, at first, but as she started to think back over her experiences since the Reward had started, she did find that she felt differently about some of them now.
Giles spoke, before she could think too much about that. “I suggest that we try a couple of experiments. Xander, I want you to give Buffy and Faith some simple orders, to see if they can resist following them.”
“What sort of orders?” asked Xander.
“It doesn’t matter, just something simple that it will be easy for us to see if they obey them or not.”
“Okay.” Xander paused for a moment. “Buffy, Faith, touch your noses!”
Buffy was tempted to do it, just to mess with Xander and Giles, but she didn’t move, other than to smile at him, and then say “No” at the same moment that Faith did.
“Are you still linked?” asked Xander.
Buffy shook her head. “No more than we always are,” she said, feeling the truth of the statement. Her link with Faith was still there, in the background of her mind, as it always was now. She reached out across it, to her sister Slayer, and felt Faith reaching back toward her. “It’s still working a-okay, though,” they said together.
“All right,” said Giles. “Now the next test: can we lie. I want each of you to answer my questions to you with a lie: Willow, what is your name?”
Willow had been sitting blushing with one arm over her breasts, and the other hand covering her crotch, too embarrassed to do or say anything up till now. She tried to say something, but her words caught in her throat, she tried again, and stopped again. “My name is… Willow Dannielle Rosenberg. Every time I try to say something else, I can’t.”
They all took turns, each of them trying to say that their name was something other than what it really was, and they all gave their full names, including Xander calling himself “Alexander LaVelle Harris,” except for Faith, who managed to keep her name to just “Faith” without going any further.
“That’s how I think of myself,” she said, when asked how she did it. “It’s my name. The other bits tacked on the end of it aren’t me. They’re just a label that someone else gave me.”
“Very well,” said Giles. “Now that we’ve established that we can’t lie, Buffy, Faith, how do you feel about the Reward?”
“We like it!” they both said, together, and then they smiled at each other, and at Xander. They kept talking together. “We love you. We love Anya. We love each other.”
“Are we really sure that all the compulsions are gone?” asked Willow.
Buffy looked at her. “Willow, I still think you’re really cute, sitting there like that, but I haven’t really spared a single thought to what your tits would look like, if you dropped your arm away from them.”
“Whereas that thought has crossed my mind, multiple times since this started,” said Faith.
“Neither of you seem to be embarrassed to be seen by us,” said Willow.
“That’s because I’m not,” said Buffy. “I’ve gotten used to being naked, a lot, and I’ve always been a bit of an exhibitionist. I’ve been naked in front of you, lots of times, while we were sharing our dorm room last year. Xander and Faith have seen me like this. The only one here who hasn’t seen me naked before is Giles, and I’m kinda enjoying how uncomfortable I’m making him, and here he has no glasses to take off, nor anything to polish them with.”
“Yes, well, fortunately, you are rather blurry to me right now,” said Giles.
“And while you’ve never seen me naked before,” Faith told Willow, “I am enjoying the way you keep forgetting that you’re not supposed to be looking at my tits, and the way you blush even more whenever you catch yourself.”
“So, back to the matter at hand,” said Giles. “Buffy and Faith: do you want the Reward to continue?”
“Yes!” they said together.
“Do you have any reservations?”
Buffy shrugged. “Some of the things we’ve done…looking back, I remember how good they felt at the time, but if you asked me if I wanted to do them now, I’d tell you ‘no,’ and I’m a little scared that my answer will turn back to ‘yes’ as soon as we end this…but then I remember how good they felt at the time, and how good all the rest of it feels, and I’m a lot more scared of losing that.”
“Faith?” asked Giles.
“I’m with B on this,” said Faith. “Though we probably have different lists of things we’d say ‘no’ to.”
“Willow, are you satisfied with Buffy and Faith’s answers?” asked Giles.
Willow slowly nodded her head. “Yes, I am. I still don’t like it, but if they genuinely want the Reward to continue, I can accept that.”
“And are you going to stop looking for ways to end the Reward?”
“No,” said Willow, “but I promise that whatever I learn, I won’t take any action without Xander, Buffy and Faith’s permission.”
Buffy, Xander and Faith all exchanged looks, and then he spoke for the three of them. “We can accept that. You wouldn’t be yourself, if you did anything else.”
“Very well,” said Giles. “I think we’re done here, it’s time to return to our bodies.”
“Just a second…” said Buffy. Something had seemed to be missing to her, from the moment she had entered the astral plain, and in a flash, it suddenly came to her.
“Oh. My. God! Can anyone remember Dawn, from before this summer?”
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