Meanwhile ... back in Sunnydale,

(Same Day), Sunday, May 1^st, 2010, 4:30pm:

Annie sat at the computer in the back room of the Magic Box and Googled “Red Riding Hood Game” … but got nothing that sounded like the game her parents played.  Then she Googled “Where do babies come from” but nearly every site she clicked on was blocked … It totally sucked having an aunt that was a computer genius and knew how to ‘kid-proof’ computers and didn’t use a password that was someone’s birthday... Annie had tried them all.

The few sites that did come up didn’t give any real information about exactly how the baby gets in the mom’s tummy.  She sighed and looked out the open door into the shop, Aunt Anya was just finishing up with a customer; there was no one else here.  Her parents and Uncle Giles were still in London and Uncle Xander had taken JJ, Dani, and Billy to the movies ‘to get them out of Aunt Anya’s hair’.

When that customer left, Annie got up from the computer and went out into the shop and leaned against the counter in front of the cash register where Anya was standing, straightening the money in the drawer.

“Aunt Anya? Can I ask you a question?” the girl ventured.

“Because they look nicer when they’re all facing the same way,” Anya answered, showing her the stack of dollar bills all straight and facing the same direction.

Annie furrowed her brow and shook her head. “Huh?”

“You were going to ask me why I straighten the money …” Anya explained, putting the bills back in the change drawer. “Everyone always asks me that … I don’t know why it’s so hard to figure out.”

“No … that’s not it,” Annie clarified. “I wanted to ask you if you knew where babies come from.”

Anya looked up from the stack of five dollar bills she’d started straightening. “Of course I do.”

When Anya went back to her task without further elaboration, Annie ventured, “Where?”

Anya looked back up and snorted a derisive ‘humph’. “Well, it’s not from the cabbage patch or the stork or Santa Claus … and they don’t get beamed down from the Starship Enterprise like Tribbles – God, that would be too easy! Noooo … women have to carry them around for nine months like a sack of potatoes strapped to their stomachs then they have to take said sack of potatoes and push it out through their vagina … which, by the way, is typically NOT the size of a sack of potatoes. Then, in the hospital, everyone in the world from the doctor to the janitor looks at your vagina like it was a boil on your forehead and they were waiting for it to burst. I can tell you one thing, if men had to birth children, the population of the earth would dwindle rapidly.”

Annie furrowed her brow and sighed as she tried to figure out what in the world Anya was talking about … vaginas and boils and potatoes and Tribbles? What are Tribbles? Where is this vagina everyone’s looking at?

“But how does the baby get in the mom’s tummy?” Annie prodded, giving up on figuring out Anya’s tirade.

“Oh, well, that’s easy. From sex. That’s the only part the man actually must participate in … then it’s up to us to do all the work. I’m telling you, the God in this dimension is a man, there’s no doubt about it… if God was a woman, there’s no way she would’ve set things up for them to get off with five minutes of intercourse and make us pay for it for nine months.  It’s completely unfair. In the Tiresias dimension, every seven years the Tiresians change gender … that’s really much more reasonable,” Anya concluded, going back to straightening her money.

Annie tried to digest what Anya was talking about, finally asking, “Is sex the same as smoochies?”

“Oh, no,” Anya replied matter-of-factly. “Kissing is just the start of it, there’s a lot more to it than just kissing.”

“Like what?”

Anya put the five dollar bills back in the till and picked up the tens and started straightening them. “You see, men and women have these wonderful interlocking bodies,” Anya started, but was cut short by the ‘ding-ding’ of the front door opening and a customer coming into the shop.

“Like LEGOS?” Annie asked quickly, as Anya put the money back in the till and shut it.

Anya thought a moment then nodded. “I think that’s where they got the idea for LEGOS,” she agreed as she came out from behind the counter and started towards the customer.

Annie went back in the training/play room at the back of the shop and dug in the toy box, pulling out some of Billy and Dani’s LEGOS … then she pulled out Barbie and Ken …

Annie undressed the dolls and examined them closely, looking for any hint of where the LEGO bits were; she’d never seen any LEGO bits on them before, but maybe she didn’t know what to look for.  Annie frowned and shook her head, still not finding anything that interlocked. But, where was Ken’s willy as her father called it, or ‘wee-wee’ as her mother had called it, when Annie asked the first time she saw Billy when he was a baby?  Surely all boys had them, not just the ones in her family … of course, she did have a rather strange family, so maybe she shouldn't take that for granted.

When the customer left, Anya came into the back room to make a money drop into the safe. Annie walked over to her and waited for her to finish before starting her interrogation again.

“Where are the LEGO parts?” she asked, holding up Ken and Barbie.

Anya rolled her eyes and took the dolls from Annie’s hands.  “Mattel gave Barbie everything … great body, stunning hair, expensive houses and cars, beautiful designer clothes and shoes, horses, and all that gorgeous plastic furniture … But she had to lose somewhere, so she got a gorgeous, if slightly gay looking, penis-less man for a boyfriend – I guess she can’t have everything!”

“So all boys have ‘wee-wees’,” Annie surmised.

“Oh, yes. But don’t call them ‘wee-wees’ … men don’t like their penises called ‘wee’ … even if they are,” Anya admonished her. “They can say size doesn’t matter all they want, but don’t let anyone fool you … that’s one of those human idioms that I’ve never understood, like ‘it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.’ Of course winning matters! Of course size matters! I’m very lucky that Xander’s been blessed with a penis that’s twenty-five percent larger than the average human male.

“Of course stamina is also important … it doesn’t help to have a large penis if he can’t pleasure you with it for more than a couple of minutes… and technique … but technique can be taught,” Anya advised. “Believe me … Xander had a lot to learn about technique when we first copulated … but he was a fast learner … it helps when the man is a fast learner.”

“Soooo…” Annie ventured. “How exactly do you have sex? What do you do?”

“Well, there are lots of different ways … the most basic is face to face, missionary position…” Anya explained, taking the dolls and demonstrating for Annie. “This way is the most intimate … eye to eye, you can kiss and he can use his pubic bone to stimulate your clitoris while his penis pleasures your vagina and g-spot. Although, there are better positions for hitting the g-spot, actually…”

Annie’s eyes went wide. “And the boy ... he puts his wee … his penis in the girl’s …”

“Vagina.”

“From where you pee?”

“No … your vagina isn’t the same as your urethra … it’s the larger of the two orifices in your pubic area - but, believe me, it's not as large as a sack of potatoes. You pee from your urethra; you have sex with your vagina. It’s between the urethra and your anus,” Anya explained.

“And … what is the cli.. cli …”

“Clitoris,” Anya provided. “That’s the little nub right above the urethra … it’s full of glorious nerve endings which produce powerful orgasms in a woman when stimulated properly.”

“What do orgasms do?” Annie questioned.

“Oh, well … they produce hormones in your brain, oxytocin and prolactin, which give you a feeling of euphoria … then they put you to sleep,” Anya explained with a confident nod.

 “Oh … like eating turkey on Thanksgiving?” Annie wondered.

“Well, the chemicals are very similar, but I’d take the sex-induced sleep over the turkey one – I’ve never had a turkey make me euphoric,” Anya confessed. “Although, maybe if I were a female turkey, I’d feel differently.”

“Oh … And …ummm… a penis is how big?” Annie wondered.

“Well, the average human adult male’s penis, when engorged with blood and fully erect, is about six inches long and about an inch and a half in diameter,” Anya provided, using her hands to demonstrate the size. “Some are larger, like my Xander’s, but some are smaller.”

Annie’s eyes went wide; Billy’s wasn’t anywhere near that big! That sounded ... painful. “Does sex hurt?”

“Not normally, but it can. It just depends on the preferences of the people having it,” Anya offered with a shrug.

Annie’s brow furrowed. Why would anyone do that? That might explain all the screaming and growling that she’d heard off and on over the years coming from her parents …

“And that’s how you make babies?” Annie pondered, looking at the copulating dolls.

“Yes … when the man is sufficiently stimulated through sexual intercourse, he will experience an autonomic physiologic response - which means, basically, his penis and testicles take control away from his brain – which, honestly, is pretty much a human male's state ninety-nine percent of the time from about the age of thirteen on," Anya observed before continuing.

"But, during sex, he will expel sperm from his testes, through his penis and into the vagina; that’s called ejaculation and orgasm. For women, the vagina and cervix spasm with her orgasm, caused by stimulation of her clitoris and g-spot, and that helps pull the sperm into the uterus … so, it’s best if both partners orgasm together for maximum chance at pregnancy … but, unfortunately, it’s not necessary.”

“Then what?” Annie prodded.

“Well … while your brain is soaking up all the euphoric hormones your orgasms produced and getting ready to go to sleep, the little sperm are fighting for their lives. The sperm have little tails on them … like tadpoles, and they swim upstream through the woman’s cervix and uterus and into the fallopian tubes to find and fertilize the egg, which travels down those tubes when she ovulates each month. It only takes one sperm to fertilize an egg … but, as usual, men go overboard and send thousands of the little swimmers on the journey … and, like men, most of them get lost.

“Only the strongest swimmers actually make it to the egg … Just the Mark Spitzes and Michael Phelps’ of the sperm world have any chance of actually reaching the egg to fertilize it… the rest just run downhill and make a sticky, gooey, wet spot on the sheets … so it’s best to have sex on his side of the bed,” Anya advised.

Annie made a face as an image of tadpoles flopping all around inside her and sliming up her sheets flashed in her mind. “How do they know where to go?” she wondered.

Anya shrugged. “Biological GPS created by countless millennia of evolution …

“Of course, some positions are more conducive to creating life … they give the little swimmers a hand, make it easier for them to reach the target…” Anya explained. “Missionary is good, but cowgirl or anything with the woman on top or standing makes it harder for them – but not impossible. Don’t think you can be on top and be safe from getting pregnant – that’s just an old wife’s tale that some males try to perpetuate because they’re out of condoms.”

Annie’s eyes went wide again. “How many positions are there?”

“Oh …” Anya shrugged. “…hundreds. See?” Anya asked, reaching into her purse and pulling out a well worn book, ‘Position of the Day’ it said in big black letters, ‘Sex everyday in every way’ it espoused underneath the title.

Annie took the book from her hand and began flipping through it. It was full of line drawings of couples in various positions … three hundred and sixty five various positions, to be exact.

Annie stopped on one called ‘The Table Dance’.

“Oh … that one’s virtually impossible,” Anya moaned, rolling her eyes. “Xander just collapsed like a house of cards, it was quite disappointing. He squealed like a school girl and his penis became flaccid when he hit the floor and I landed on top of him. His testicles were sore and swollen for a week. There are a lot of challenging positions in there, but that’s the first one we tried that actually caused bodily injury to my favorite part of Xander’s body.

“I bet Spike could do that one. Your father’s quite well muscled and flexible … and with that vampire strength and stamina … yeah, I bet he and Buffy could do that.”

Annie slammed the book closed and handed it back to Anya, not sure that she wanted to imagine her parents doing that.

“Oh … sorry. I understand that it’s uncomfortable for children in this society to think about their parents having sex … but you wouldn’t be here if they didn’t,” Anya explained, putting the book back in her purse, which was sitting on a table next to the drop-safe. “I don’t know why so many humans are so touchy about the subject … honestly, it’s been done going all the way back to when all life was just a slurry of amoebas.”

“Amoebas have sex?” Annie questioned.

Anya rolled her eyes. “Well, I don’t actually know … but I can tell you all mammals have sex … and that includes your parents.”

Their conversation was interrupted by the bell on the front door ringing and Dani, Billy, and JJ running in from the street, wired on movie candy and syrupy sodas.  Annie picked up the copulating Ken and Barbie dolls and tossed them back into the toy box just before the younger children made it to the back.  They must’ve seen some kind of kung-fu movie, because they were all kicking and Karate-chopping each other and yelling ‘HI-YA!’ as they ran.

Annie watched as Anya met Xander out on the floor of the shop and began chastising him for bringing them back all hyped up … then she looked at her siblings and cousin – they were tumbling around on the mats, still acting out the movie and not paying any attention to her.  Annie slowly walked over to Anya’s purse and pulled the book back out, keeping it behind her back out of view from the wrestling children, she silently slid it into her own backpack for closer inspection later …

**~**

Later that night, while Anya was getting JJ and Billy their baths … which she’d started giving them together to keep from running out of hot water, and Dani was downstairs watching TV, Annie closed the door to the spare bedroom she and Dani shared and pulled the book out of her bag. Despite not wanting to think about her parents having sex, her curiosity about what exactly they were doing got the better of her, and she began scanning the book for the ‘Red Riding Hood’ position…

Annie got all the way through, scanning quickly, but couldn’t find anything called that. She sighed and put the book back in her backpack and headed downstairs.  Dani was watching ‘The Powerpuff Girls’ on TV, which Annie didn’t particularly care for, so she went into the kitchen where Uncle Xander was making an after dinner snack.

Annie sat down on one of the stools at the island and watched him make a sandwich from leftover meatloaf.

“Want some?” he offered, pointing at the meatloaf.

“No, thanks,” Annie replied.

“Drink?” he offered.

“No …”

“What’s up, Doodlebug?” Xander asked, as he leaned over the sink to eat his creation so as to not dirty any dishes and thus avoid Anya's wrath, facing away from Annie.

“I was wondering … do you know what the Red Riding Hood game is?” Annie questioned.

“Uhhhh … no, I don’t think so … Oh! Wait! Is it a new reality TV show … like the Amazing Race … ‘over the river and through the woods’ or something?” Xander questioned, before taking another bite.

“No … it’s a sex position and I think that’s how mom and dad made the new baby …” Annie explained.

Xander choked and coughed until his eyes watered and he dropped the rest of the sandwich in the sink as he tried to get the bits of it that he’d inhaled out of his windpipe.  Finally, he turned around, his face flushed and eyes still tearing slightly.

“Sex?” he questioned, his voice shrill, breaking several octaves higher than normal. He laughed nervously. “No, honey … that’s not … Babies come from watermelon seeds … the mommy swallows the seed and a baby grows in her tummy…”

Annie rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. “Uncle Xander, that’s just a story for little kids. Aunt Anya says babies are made when a man’s penis ejaculates sperm into the vagina and Olympic gold-medal tadpoles swim up and find the egg with a biological GPS and they fertilize it. That’s what makes a baby.”

“Uhhhh… well …” Xander stammered.

“I thought you actually had sex before … Aunt Anya says that your penis is twenty-five percent larger than the average human male and that you’re a fast learner … but I’m not so sure about that last part.”

“AHN!!!”

**~**