Toby: Dunia's Sex Life (Part 1?)

As you might imagine, Dunia wanted a full report after my first time meeting Luis in person, and she was really encouraging saying I did really well, and that I shouldn't worry about his Mami, saying she actually likes her but is also big on people being on time and had a hair trigger on whether someone was disrespecting her son ever since he'd enlisted, which was funny because she used to call him lazy and good for nothing.

I sort of tried to skip the making-out stuff, and I thought she was going to let me, but she circled back around toward the end to press for details, seeming more wistful than jealous, laughing when I got to the part about how he smelled, saying she didn't really think about that most of the time, but it was true.  I thought we were done, but then she grabbed my hand across the airport Starbucks table, and looked me square in the eyes.  "What would you have done if Senora Hernandez had not slammed that door?"

"I... uh... probably would have said it's been so long and I'm not sure I'm ready?"

She half-smiled in a way Lambert hadn't when he was Alicia, and shook her head.  "Look, I'm not going to say I'm totally okay with you having sex with my boyfriend - it's a little more difficult for me to hear about last night than I thought it would be, but I can handle it - but if he's still going to be my boyfriend next spring, there's no avoiding it.  But it's not just that, it's...  Well, I love him, but you've got to be careful, okay?  I'm not saying he's every been a bad boyfriend or lifted a finger against me, and I never imagined he would, but he sounds kind of different.  Like, he went in for the kiss really fast, and that thing about not wanting you to help him up the stairs, it just, I dunno."

"Wait, do you think he's different like we're different?"

"What?  No!  I just mean--"  She changed her grip on my hand so she was holding it more lightly in both of hers.  "Look, Toby, you're a really good guy, and I've been really lucky to have you living my life rather than someone else, and I'll bet you've been a great boyfriend, but you've got to understand, Luis is Latino man, and some of those stereotypes about machismo are real, okay?  He's also been away from home, and losing part of his leg probably makes him feel like less than a whole man, and, I dunno, if it were anyone else I'd be all like 'girl, be careful', you know?"

I didn't, really, at least not until a couple nights when I got to "meet" some of Luis's friends, who I guess haven't seen me in a while.  It was a bit awkward - Dunia said he'd be disappointed if I didn't dress sexy, so I did, and there was a lot of squeezing and sending me to get stuff so he wouldn't have to mess with his crutches, which led to a lot of loud appreciation for what my ass does in the heels I was wearing.  After a while, I kind of played it up a little, because what else can you do but try to own it, right?  Luis spanked it a couple times and I ended up in his lap for a while, getting kissed more than once.  I probably should have initiated that more than I did, because by the end of the night I was a little worried that I looked reluctant, especially that time I squirmed when I felt something moving in his pants.  Being shown off is kind of weird, especially given that I'm sort of his girlfriend because of a bunch of really random circumstances.

The party went late, enough that we were looking at repeat of him getting drowsy from the midnight meds, so I was able to beg off by mentioning I had an early flight today.  He looked really disappointed, but it was true.

So, I guess I know what I've got to do next.

-Toby/Dunia

Arthur (formerly Penny): Lonnie & Della

I'm doing better now.  I do not like this thing where I need to get up and pee at 3:30AM seemingly every day, because it seems specifically designed so that I can't get a few more proper hours before Lonnie wakes up while also being way too early to talk to any of my East Coast friends, but I'm trying to adapt.  Get a little writing done while it's quiet and I won't be interrupted by calls, spend a little time making Lonnie a good lunch, occasionally boot up the Playstation.  I haven't gamed a lot the past few years, and the only place Germy's taste and mine really overlaps is sports games (would I like shooters more if I'd been a man at any point during the past 20 years?), but there are worse ways to make an hour or two disappear. 

Then Lonnie wakes up, and I don't know if I love him yet, but I'm getting fond of the little guy. 

I'm trying not to look at him and try to see signs that he's my kid, the way the whole last year kicked off because I sometimes worried that Millie was as much Nell's daughter as mine.  He likes books and Legos and doesn't much enjoy gym class the way I didn't before becoming Penny, but that's a lot of kids.  He's got a whole bunch of Pokémon memorized but didn't really know the Looney Tunes when we went to see Coyote vs Acme the other weekend.  He asks a lot more questions than Millie did at that age, and a lot of them have to do with Mommy coming back or going to see Grandma. 

That's a tricky one to navigate, because while I'm not religious, really - having been through the Inn experience makes it clear there is more going on in the world than we understand, it doesn't seem to match up with any specific belief system - his grandmother Della has apparently moved in that direction lately, and will tell Lonnie that Mommy's in Heaven . I don't know how the past few years she's had would lead one to believe in a benevolent God more, but maybe she needs it.  Things with her are shaky enough that I don't want to contradict her in the moment, and she's not pestering us about going to church, but it kind of feels like things are in flux.

I suspect I'd like Della under other circumstances, though.  She's mad about the A's being in Sacramento but doesn't want me to raise Lonnie to be a Giants fan.  She phone banks for Democrats and is always caught by surprise when I agree with her on something, as if she remembered Germy having bad opinions and was looking for a fight.  She's good at Scrabble and doesn't see why anyone needs more games in the house beyond that, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, and Yahtzee, but her daughter enjoyed them and every once in a while something she helped crowdfunded shows up in the mail and Della tries to get the other seniors in the complex to try it out with her.

I'm kind of not sure how to tell her that I'm mostly looking for jobs in the Northeast, because it's clearly the highlight of the week for both her and Lonnie when we visit every weekend.  It's a little work; her complex is in the suburbs of Monterey, so there's no getting there other than driving, and sometimes it's hard to recall that I grew up in California for how much I've relied on the T living in Boston.  For about a month, Lonnie whined when I said we were taking the bus or the BART to get somewhere rather than the car, and I do sometimes feel like I should just give in, but lately he's started memorizing bus schedules the way he does Pokémon.

It's funny, sort of, that if not for Ray and Millie, I do think I could eventually be happy with this life, as opposed to feeling guilty every time it keeps me too busy to dwell on being apart from them or actively working to find a way back. 

- Arthur/Penny/Arthur

Caleb/Rylee: Time to Duel or Date?

So, I have a confession: I’m a bit of a nerd.

Don’t get me wrong, Rylee's passion for acting surpasses anything I've ever been into, but I do have my hobbies that I was into that I have not really gotten a chance to indulge in since turning into her. One thing in particular I invested a good amount of time and money into was the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game. While I didn’t grow up with any of the series, it was still in the periphery of other fandoms I was in and…I don’t know, something about it caught my attention. Maybe it was a mix of the artwork and gameplay that drew me in, and while it's a complex mess that could do a lot more work to not keep printing these $100 staples that come out every other set, it was something I was able to get into. Plus, going to local tournaments was one of the few regular bits of socialization I indulged in. 

Of course, I couldn’t exactly have the current me send my card collection to Rylee’s home address: trying to explain why an older guy I “met online” was sending me a couple hundred dollars' worth of stuff Rylee had never shown any interest in before would have been a little awkward to explain to Shannon. Fortunately, here at college I have a lot more freedom to let some of my real self slip out and no one be the wiser, and with a new core set coming out soon I figured it was as good excuse as any to indulge a little bit more in being "me".

The thing is, though, I'm not me, and the events that came out of just wanting to play a card game did a really good job of reminding me of that.

It all started on the way back from the campus post office. I had initially asked the current me to just send a couple of things, just the most recent deck I had been playing before my trip to the Inn and some staples I could use to switch around. In the spirit of being "helpful", however, he had sent my entire collection. For those of you who don't play these kind of things, you're probably wondering how bad could some slips of cardboards be? Well, shove a couple hundred cards into several good quality binders, plus some tins filled with bulk, a playmat, deck boxes, and other little accessories, and it starts to add up pretty quickly.

Admittedly, with all the workouts I've adopted to as Rylee I was in decent shape, but with having to carry several boxes halfway across campus, I could start to feel a little quiver in my arms. That was when he showed up.

“You, uh, want some help with those?”

It was Joshua, one of the guys from my theater courses. Generally speaking, I considered him a nice enough guy: friendly, helpful, kind of goofy. I wasn't ignorant to assume that every guy who had a musical theater concentration was also gay, however (though yes, most of the other guys I knew from class were), and recently I had started trying to keep my guard up around him because I suspected he might have a crush on me. Maybe it was just me being a little paranoid after the situation with Evan of any handsome guy with cropped, brunette hair and pearly white smile trying to get into my orbit, but it did feel like he was just a little quick to offer to pair up with me in class, meet up to do homework, and maybe let his hands linger just a little longer than needed if a scene required touching me. Then again, everyone in theater seems to damn touchy-feely - it wasn't a proper lesson till every part of me was poked and prodded by the professors critiquing my posture and positioning - so I just left my relationship with him at friendly but cautious, in case my calibration was just off compared to someone who was properly trained in all this acting stuff.

In that moment, however, I was willing to let that guard down just a little because hey, might as well let those arms that were capable lifting a full goddamn person in the air for a musical number carry my stuff for me.

“Oof, what exactly do you got in here?” he asks with a small, playful laugh.

“It’s, uhm, some trading cards," I say, brushing some hair out of my face, having had no chance to do so when my arms were full of boxes.

“Damn, did you order Pokémon cards? Trying to scalp your way through college?" he says, grinning.

“No, nothing like that. Actually, it’s Yu-Gi-Oh cards..."

“Oh, really? Huh, wouldn't have clocked you for someone into that kind of stuff."

Not a surprise he'd have thought that. Even if it had gotten better over time, the game kind of did have a "boy's club" vibe to it. At locals, if there was a girl around, they were either someone's girlfriend or sister, and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I actually played against a girl.

"Yeah, well, I saw that apparently a lot of the stuff these days got, like, lore in the card art and effects and stuff, and some of it sounded really neat that I kind of just kept digging and, I don't know, it seemed kind of fun. Did the digital sims for a bit, but saw a guy selling his collection online for cheap -" the excuse I had for how I got this collection "- and that there's a place near the campus that runs tournaments so, I don't know, figured why the hell not. Mean, worst case is I just sell it all again, right?"

"Uh, guess that sounds kind of cool, using card art and game mechanics to tell a story. Want some help getting this all unpacked?"

I probably should have said no, but the urge to nerd out with someone else was overriding my guard, or at least that was what I was telling myself at the time. So, I said it was fine if he wanted to hang out for a bit, and for the next couple of hours he had to listen to me yap about my deck of choice, what annoyed me about the current format, what I was excited was coming out in the future, and how I might need to get a campus job to help get some cash for it. 

In retrospect, the fact he was not only hanging around listening to all that but even trying to feign some interest really should have been the flag that "this guy is crushing hard" on you. Like I said, though, having had to be "Rylee" had been exhausting, and just getting to let some of the real me out was just such a relief I almost didn't really care if he was just motivated by wanting to bang me. Besides, to his credit, he was really good at showing interest, asking questions, commenting on the art, totally acting like he knew what I was talking about in regard to this or that mechanic.

Eventually I was done building something I was happy enough with and he had to head out, and I should have just left it to that, but...

“Hey, uhm, if you want to, want to tag along with me to the tournament?”

He was practically beaming, and I quickly get into damage control mode as I explained why exactly I was wanting him to tag along.

“It's just, not a lot of girls play this game, you know? Plus, the tournaments can run a little long so it'll probably be dark out by the time we leave so..."

"Oh, yeah, I totally get it. Need me around to play escort. That's cool."

Still, when we met up Saturday, he clearly still thought this was his opportunity. Fresh hair cut, recently laundered clothes, the faint scent of cologne. Standard dress up nicely kind of deal, way more than he needed just to go to a comic shop and sit around while I played some cards.

Of course, I didn't have much room to talk as I had upped my own outfit game just a tad. While on campus the classes kept me in t-shirts and jeans thrown over a workout outfit, going off campus felt like it required a little more effort. I didn’t exactly want to give out the wrong impression here, but it was a habit of mine that if I was going to go out anywhere around people, I usually tried to make myself presentable, and some of that was carrying over. Sure, I was still in pants, but a nicer pair, and had switched out the t-shirt for a light sweater and jacket combination with a pair of boots. Not super dressy, but at least a little step up from campus casual.

We took the bus to the downtown area near the college and headed to the shop. Being the pre-release event for a new set there were a lot of people, probably more than a regular Saturday would have brought. There were even a few other girls there, but like I said, I was expecting most of them to just be girlfriends or family members of the guys. Maybe a little biased against my current sex, but I'm just relaying my experiences, which meant when signups were called and like maybe one other girl stood in line to register it kind of made me standout. Not long after Joshua and I were getting approached by the regulars curious about the new blood, but at least at the start of things it seemed Joshua's presence kept things pretty courteous enough. There was, perhaps, some surprise that it was me was playing and not him, but at least no one was trying anything flirtatious as long as he was there as a ward.

Still, once the tournament commenced and he moved to the sidelines, the rest of the night was just an uncanny valley compared to my past experiences. Obviously, some of that was just the weirdness of being in a new place with new people, but I think word was finally getting around Joshua and I weren't an item, which meant that I was "available".  For some of the guys, that meant that a game match against me was, apparently, also the perfect time to fit in a speed date. Like yes, I know Fairy Tail is a cute archetype, but you aren't exactly slick in saying that therefore it was the "perfect" deck for me. The only relief came when I got paired up against that other girl who entered. It was a nice change of pace that the most frustrating part of that match was that Elfnote is a totally unfair deck that shouldn't have been printed and not having to try and determine the person across from me was trying to count the cards in my hand or just staring at my boobs.

Anyway, went 3-2 but didn’t bubble into the top cut so no prizing. With the whole night having just felt weird and no real reason to stay, I motioned for him I was ready to head out. He said goodbye to I guess some new friends of his, and we were off into the night.

“Well, it looked like you had fun,” Joshua said, apparently starting things off for the walk-home chatting.

“Eh, sort of. When I got to focus on the game it was fun, but I guess being the only single girl there meant I ended up with a target on my back," I said, frustrated I wasn't able to fully enjoy one of my favorite hobbies because of all this stupid Inn stuff.

He winced and sucked in some air.

“Yeah, I wasn’t going to mention it, but since you brought it up, lot of the guys were curious if you and me were, you know, a thing? I almost lied and said we were cause I thought that'd discourage them, but since we hadn't talked about any plans like that..."

"Eh, I actually thought of that, but didn't think things would be bad enough to need to do that. And I mean, it wasn't totally bad. Not a great first impression but, well, lot of guys into this stuff can just be a little awkward so, I don't know, I don't want to hold it against them too much."

That was talking from experience. Social anxiety was something I had always struggled with, and so having been on the other side of the table I was willing to cut a little slack. Just a little, though. After all, anxious or not, you really should work on making it so you're more focused on making sure you're remembering activation triggers than trying to talk up a pretty girl. I mean, sure, I was finding myself struggling a little with regulating my own emotions when it came to things, but I at least have the excuse of having been ace till a few months ago, so what was their excuse.

Take a moment to appreciate the pride before the fall here.

"Anyway, I still appreciate coming out. Think having you around even just as a friend probably helped keep things in check. Still, I don't want to make you come out here every single time."

"Hey, don't sweat it, I had fun too, in my own way. Besides, it was nice seeing another side of you. In class you always seem so awkward and stiff, but, like, the way you were just beaming while talking about, what was it, Fairy Tail?"

I nodded, feeling a bit of a flutter in my chest as he kept talking.

“Yeah, you were so passionate talking about those little guys, and then being just so in the zone you even did the whole tie your hair into a ponytail and scrunchie thing? It kind of almost makes me want to go and build up a deck. And hey, you wouldn't have to worry about those guys staring at your rack all night if I take them out first, right?"

Hey, allosexuals reading this, how the fuck do you deal with the hormones? 

Like, I hate to admit it, but when he ended that line with a cheesy little smile I couldn’t help but bust out a laugh, my whole body just rushing with this flushing heat as I heard him join in.

“No offense, but with this format, you’d probably get absolutely destroyed” I say, trying to steer things back to the card game instead of me.

“Oh, says the girl who this was her 'first time' at locals? I think if you offered me a little tutoring and training I could probably hold my own, and maybe in return I could take you out to dinner some time?"

Shit shit shit

There was the logical recognition, of course, that obviously this whole night out with me was a ploy to try and butter me up for a date. And I couldn’t blame him; he was just being a guy who liked a girl and was trying to do things right by taking an interest in her hobbies and sliding in some flirtatious banter. The whole issue was simply that right now I was that girl, and the rational parts of my brain were on red alert. Rylee’s body, on the other hand, was apparently an absolute sucker for all of this.

“Yeah, sure, I guess I can do that,” I squeak out nervously. 

I mean, I really did want someone who I could share some of my real interests and personality with, but was it worth the risk of getting entangled in something more than that when I was still trying to deal with all these signals this body was sending to my brain?

Thankfully the bus arrived and we were swiftly driven back to campus. Sharing the same dorm meant we had to huddle together just a little longer, sharing some chit chat about maybe what kind of deck would work for him, plus a few last-minute reminders of oh shit there was an assignment due Monday. I could feel myself calming down as we hit the point where we needed to part ways, but there was still just this incessant buzzing in my ear that was saying “Kiss him, kiss him, kiss him.”

Instead, I just wished him a good night as we went our different ways, quickly getting into my dorm room and taking a deep breath as I leaned up against the door.

“So, how'd the tournament go?” asked Sydney, glancing up from her desk.

“I, uh, think I might be dating Joshua now?"

Toby: Dunia's Big Day

I can't say yesterday was the craziest day of my life, because I've had one where I woke up as a Latina woman and others where I didn't get to become myself again because the police were questioning me about the whole thing, but, man, yesterday was something.  It kind of blows my mind that the only person back home who will ever believe me is Lambert, and it kind of makes me sad, even if there are some things I don't really want to explain to Mom.

Mostly, how a big part of the reason I was on edge to start was because I'd just found out the night before that Dunia's boyfriend Luis would be coming home that day.  I think he was kind of nervous about it, too, because he's not usually one to be low-key; most of his texts before the injury had swagger to them or were kind of over-the-top complimentary about some picture I'd sent or posted (dude really likes Dunia's ass!), although often in a way that makes it reflect well on him for being her boyfriend.  Instead he was like "hey, coming home tomorrow, the flight will be kind of late and my folks are getting me but if you're going to be at the airport anyway..."  I said of course I would be there, and then texted Dunia right away, saying the day had come.

We'd sort of come up with a plan from watching and participating in other military reunions in the airport, which are way less spontaneous than they look, between letting families meet returning soldiers at the gate, finding the best spots for someone to capture it on camera, and making sure that wheelchairs are treated a lot more carefully than usual (and having me roll them out of the plane, because the military girlfriend is a good look if folks decide to interview absolutely everyone around).  This wasn't a fancy, makes-the-news return, because Luis was not deployed to someplace active, so we could sort of scout things out and pick out a spot for Dunia to hang back and interrupt if I was really screwing things up or just overwhelmed. 

There was a round trip before that, though, and it was looking pretty uneventful for the first hour or so.  That's when I noticed a crowd forming around the restroom in the rear of the plane getting a little anxious, and they said someone had been in there for fifteen minutes and wasn't responding to knocks on the door, but they thought they'd just heard some sort of noise.  I told them to step back, knocked myself, and then when I got no response, unlocked the door. 

There was an older lady on the floor, with an open prescription bottle of heart medication spilled around her.  She wasn't breathing.  Someone who had been crowding the door screamed and I told her to get back while I laid her flat, checked her airway, and started performing CPR.

I barely noticed Dunia run down the aisle when she heard the noise, but she grabbed the intercom, informed the captain, and asked if I needed any help.  The lady took a well-timed shallow breath at that point, so I said no, and she started telling everyone to return to her seats.  A minute or two later, the captain made an announcement, and pretty soon we're descending. 

I don't know if any of you have ever had to do this before, but while I imagine it's scary as Hell at the best of times (you're starting out from someone who's technically dead and even if it's not an older person with brittle bones, you've probably gotta break their ribs because they're basically there to keep anything from outside having any impact on the heart), but with the plane banking and the angles changing, you've really gotta straddle the other person and tense up so you don't move.  I think Dunia or Allen was holding my shoulders at some point to keep me steady, but I was just trying to stay focused on the job at hand.

Eventually we stop and I vaguely hear Dunia and Allen telling everyone to stay in their seats so the EMTs can get through.  They lift the lady into a stretcher and roll her away.  Nobody else on the plane gets off with her, so I guess she was traveling alone.  I sit in the jump seat and try to catch my breath as the passengers leave the plane.

We're in North Carolina, I think, in a city our airline doesn't usually travel to, so I guess there's a lot of stuff to do, finding a window where we can take off again which would put the co-pilot above his allowed hours on the clock and, meaning they had to bring in a replacement.  It's a two-hour delay, which means when we get to DC, the rest of us are over time and have been reassigned to another flight in the morning.  Fortunately, I guess, when someone mentions Luis coming home, they make room for me to deadhead back, but between him being in the air and me being in the air, he doesn't get the message that I'll be a few hours late until after he arrives, and he went home with his mami.

I probably could have done the same, but it seemed like a shitty way to treat a disabled veteran, so I got a ride share and headed to their house.  It was eleven o'clock by then, but he'd said he'd be up a while.  I was incredibly nervous as I rang the doorbell, and was a bit relieved when Luis's mother answered it.  "Well, look who decided to show up!"

I was ready to say something about how I probably had more trouble with delays at the airport than you'd think, but she looked too tired for that.  "Long day."

She grunted.  "Well, come in.  Luis is in the living room."  I nodded, and took a step in what turned out to be the right direction.

He was sitting on the couch watching a horror movie, which he paused on seeing me.  "Well, look at us.  Didn't figure you'd be in uniform while I was in my civvies the next time we met."

I chuckled at that, and he started to reach for his crutches on the floor, but I could see from how the end of one leg of his pants was empty that this was going to be a production.  "Hey, no need to get up."  I walked over and was about to sit next to him when he put his arms around my waist and pulled me down.  Before I could squawk, his tongue was inside my mouth and one of his hands was on my bottom while the other held me close.

I was kind of surprised at how quickly I responded.  Sure, I'd been psyching myself up for this moment for the past two weeks, and it wasn't the first time a guy had kissed me, but this was different than that time at the club.  That man had been playing and exploring and having fun, but Luis had been waiting for this, so there was force behind it.  Not that I felt attacked, but you could feel the emotion.  And, besides, I had been waiting for it too.  I've been Dunia over a year, and while I tried to deny it for a while, it had been a long time since I felt desire in a women's changing room, and even longer since the first time I felt my head turn at a good-looking guy.  Not wanting to cheat on Luis was a good reason to not explore that, but now that I was in his grip, it melted away.

And he was pretty nice himself!  The army had been keeping him in good shape, he knew every curve of my body even better than I did, and he kind of smelled real good, like, the guys at the club tend to be wearing some sort of body spray or cologne and the folks at the bleach were usually sweaty and covering that up with Axe if anything.  Luis, and it feels weird to say it, smelled like a man, and something in my body was really responding to it.

Honestly, I might have been ready to let him have me right there, but his mami made sure to slam the door as she went to her bedroom, which gave us the giggles, and led to us sitting up and straightening our clothes.  I got my hair out of its bun to let him talk first, and he took the occasion to repeat that I really did look good in the uniform, and how my dream job was treating me.

"Really good, actually, even today!  It's still exciting to take off, and you meet a lot of interesting people, if only for a couple hours.  I've kind of been flying the same few routes for the past year, but it's really nifty to spend the afternoon in another city entirely before going home, and I'm gonna try and mix it up a little more from now on.  And sometimes, like today, you get a chance to really help someone."

He raised his eyebrow, because I'd only said a medical emergency made me late in my text, so I filled him in.  It was honestly kind of embarrassing telling that to a soldier whose leg had been amputated like I had done anything particularly brave or noteworthy, but he said he was proud of me.

Then his phone beeped, and he said it was time for his midnight meds.  I hadn't even noticed the pill bottle on the end table, but asked him if I could get him some water.  He said no and swallowed them dry before putting them back, turned around so I couldn't see the label.  Before I could ask how he was doing, he mentioned they made him pretty drowsy, resituating himself so he was lying down with he head on my lap.

We talked a little more, asking whether Ceci was still a trainwreck, or if I'd heard anything about some friend of his that Dunia had never mentioned to me.  After about fifteen minutes, he really did seem to be trailing off, so I asked if he needed help getting upstairs, and he said he figured he'd just sleep down there.  I said okay, and held his hand until he nodded off, which almost felt more intimate than the kissing:  His grip was tight until it was a little looser, and I felt a little guilty pulling away and catching a ride back to Dunia's house.

Fortunately, Dunia and I have a late flight today, so I could sleep in and won't have to tell her everything until then.  Because, wow, it's a lot, and I'm not sure if I'm up for things being this intense all the time!

Marc/Mary: Coming home

On the train ride home, we were quiet. Not coldly quiet, but comfortably. At least, that's my interpretation. I would look over at John, and he'd look back at me and flash me a quick smile, then go back to his book, and I'd think, okay, good, we don't need to constantly be chattering. Our relationship is pretty lived-in. That's comforting to know.

After my fourth trip to the bathroom he teased me by asking if I would rather just stay in there. I didn't say anything to that, and maybe slightly unintentionally said nothing for a long while. The silence must have been quite pointed, because he sneered, "What, are you going to freeze me out the whole trip over some wisecrack? You really are a woman now, huh?"

I just kind of sighed, annoyedly, and tried to gather my thoughts. "I'm not there yet, okay? I know I chose this -- more or less -- but I'm still coming to terms with that. Give me a little bit of a grace period, you know?"

"All right, all right," he said, kind of dismissively. "Sue me for thinking we'd be the same people we always were before."

He continued, "I don't see why you being the woman and me the man should mean our dynamic is any different from what it's always been."

"Well, for the time being, it is," I said coolly. I paused a bit before adding, "That doesn't mean I don't still like you or want you, but it is going to be different. You understand that, right?"

How could it not be? I already feel different. going from a testosterone-driven young man to a woman of somewhat advanced years, I feel the change. And I'm sure he does too even if he doesn't want to admit it. I think he wants to be hungry for me in the way that he was as Koti, but it's not the same, on my end or his.

He kind of pouted over this, so I decided to do him a favor and lean over to kiss him. It was... nice. Kissing men again. Different, but not unwelcome when it's someone you're attached to.

He accepted my peace offering and the rest of the ride was fine. Then we got to the house, and... well, it all hit me.

I mean, remember when I caught Mary crying over her decision, insisting she didn't feel bad about it but she needed time to process the decision we had made?

I suddenly felt it when I walked into the house. Even though the real Mary hadn't lived here in a year, this was the home that she had made for herself and her husband. It had her decorating sensibility, her spirit.

And it wasn't like walking into Chantelle's apartment, or Ryan's, or Ed's home or the place that Dustin and Koti and all of us lived. Those places, I was aware that I was transient and that I fully intended to give them back. I didn't particularly feel the weight of any of those places. But this home had roots. I looked at the hardwood floors and the area rugs and the lighting fixtures and the colors on the walls and the furniture layout and all of it, and something just struck me.

I have walked into a life. A life that somebody built and has now bequeathed to me, because under the surface it was no longer her.

That hit me hard, and it was days before I could even put a word to it. All I felt at first was the tears, the sobs, the overwhelm. This is a life, Marc -- it's your life now, and it's something you have not had in a long, long time.

I turned and buried my head in John's chest, and he stroked my hair and I don't think he really understood what I was feeling -- and I don't blame him -- but it really settled into my bones. It is up to me to build a life as this person.

To his credit, he asked what was going on, and I told him I'd tell him when I knew. And it was a few days later I was able to write it all out and kind of tell him how I was feeling. And it wasn't bad, just heavy.

John and I are going to build a life together. And if it doesn't work... I don't know what then.

-Marc/Mary

Caleb/Rylee: Welcome, Class of 2030

After spending the last four years of my life pulling all-nighters writing code and analyzing data, I have officially…started all over again, in a different body, with a completely different degree program that’s about as 180 as you could get from what I know.

Yes, the fall semester has officially started, which means that I’ve spent the last few weeks moving in, doing freshman orientation stuff, and getting settled into classes. Kaitlyn’s probably right that at first she was busier than me running Clint's life, but I think at this point I might have her beat.

But let’s start with the beginning.

The actual process of moving in was relatively straightforward, helped by Shannon and "Clint" getting along. That little date night seems to have warmed Shannon up to Kaitlyn-as-Clint, and we were able to get my things up to the dorm without any fights or passive-aggressive comments. Also helped that I didn't bring a lot with me, preferring my dorm room be a little more minimalist. Only thing beyond the clothes, extra sheets, and school supplies I brought was a fridge and some DVDs from Rylee's collection. Didn't even bother with a TV, which I had been tempted on, but ultimately everything's on streaming these days. Shannon apparently approved of the minimalism, having initially expected Rylee to want to drag almost everything with her to college.

"Well, I'm only going to be in this room for a year," I said, appreciating the irony of the double meaning of that statement.

It was around then that my roommate showed up. Her name was Sydney, and when it comes to potential college roommates I think I lucked out. She was a business major and came off as kind of quiet and studious. Like, call it stereotyping, but I doubted the girl in square frame glasses and a cardigan was going to be up at one o’clock in the morning listening to conspiracy theory videos and death metal albums like my first freshman roommate did. 

There wasn't much of a chance to hang out, though, as after all the move-in it was just a string of "freshman experiences" to help get us "integrated": convocations, initial meetings with our first-year experience courses, tours of campus pointing out important locations, floor meetings with the RA. It was practically smothering in how much the university didn't want to leave us alone this week, enough that when the opportunity for some off-campus trips and parties came up on the weekend I decided to just crash in the dorm room and recharge.

That's when the real challenges began: theater classes.

I had really hoped that I could get away with padding out my schedule with mostly gen-ed requirements, but my advisor and the acting course instructor, Dr. Price, was pretty persistent in saying the schedule was optimized for a clean pathway to graduation. At least Rylee had not taken up a musical theater concentration like Dr. Price had wanted: having to learn to sing and dance on top of the acting would have been a practical death sentence to Rylee's GPA.

Not to say that her GPA was exactly safe and sound right now, at least for her major.

But before I get into that, fun fact about theater courses: there's a dress code. First day of every single class we were told we would be moving a lot and so to dress appropriately. So now my work-out clothes are basically my everyday outfit. I initially tried to change before and after class, but I gave up on that after the first week and now just throw a pair of jeans and t-shirt over them.

Anyway, inconvenient dress code aside, what's the course content like? Well, it varies.

Intro to Backstage is, well, learning about the backstage part of a production. Of all the courses this has probably been the easiest one for me to get into, being a lot of learning about technical aspects of managing the backstage area, getting some hands-on experiences with the equipment, things like that. With a little room for electives next semester, I might pick up one of the advanced stage production courses just to have something to ground myself in.

The second course I had to take kind of surprised me because what do you there is an entire course on the voice?!  Scratch that, two courses on it, there’s another one next semester. At least right it's mostly going over a lot of the same things that Rylee had written for me as part of the workout routine, like breathing techniques and practicing my diction and projection. Will say, though, Rylee's got a good set of pipes. If I had been taking this in my real body, I'm sure I'd have developed sore throat issues by now.

The final course, however, is the real killer: Fundamentals of Acting I. As I said earlier, my advisor is the instructor, so there's a whole extra level of pressure to doing well, and so far I think I'm coming in under expectations.

The thing is, though, part of the course is actually ok. If you ask me to read something, write a summary and analysis of what it said, and then quiz me on it? Sure, I can do that all day. Even if the subject matter is more theories of acting rather than how to properly perform a regression analysis, I like to consider myself literate enough to do that.

The performances, though, that’s where things start to fall apart.

Sometimes they're small, like these little "A/B" scene things we get asked to do where we pair up with a partner and perform a little scene then experiment with how our acting choices change it. Think how screaming out "Oh my god" gets you a very different vibe than saying it like a mean girl."

Other times, we're having to do sample monologues from some piece, and down the road during "Meisner" week we'll be expected to do improv.

Regardless of the type of performance, though, I tend to get similar feedback: "too restrained", "not experimental enough", "overthinking", "missing the timing". In short, everybody thinks I'm too stuck inside my own head and afraid to let things out. I'd argue that my brain's just too overloaded with already pulling one performance that it's rude to ask me to do another one on top of it. Regardless, Dr. Price has definitely noticed there's a gap in ability between what I do in class and what the real Rylee did in her audition tapes. She's willing to chalk it up to freshman nerves, but I still think my main hope for this course is acing the paperwork side of things will make it up enough to get a passing grade: Cs get degrees, after all.

Still, the classes aren’t all bad.

I was kind of expecting a cut-throat competitive environment like you’d see on the tv-shows, but so far that doesn't seem to be the case. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they'd probably be at least a little giddy if someone literally broke a leg while competing with them for top billing on a show, but they'd at least sign the cast and wish you a speedy recovery. Or maybe I'm just so clearly not a threat no one sees the point in going all mean-girl on me and just leaves me alone.

There's at least one girl, Paige, I'm pretty confident is just genuinely friendly with everyone, and I didn't even have to wait till class started for her to declare we were besties.

It was that first weekend, going to the gym my one exception to crashing out in the dorm the whole time. I was in the locker room and had just finished undressing when this blonde girl rushes up to me all excited. Apparently, Paige and Rylee had met during the mandatory freshman campus visits that Rylee had gone to before Inn. They were both theater students - though Paige apparently is double-majoring in arts administration - and the two hit it off well enough that they had meant to keep in touch the rest of the summer. I had not been informed of that, however, so I was instead left to flounder in confusion at this random stranger chatting me up while I was half naked. My confusion didn't seem to hinder her, however, and soon enough she was asking if I wanted a workout partner.

I was really tempted to politely decline, my inner introvert already feeling exhausted at the idea of someone so cheerfully bright hanging around me all the time. But I don't know, something about those blue eyes glimmering with excitement broke me down, and I ended up agreeing to it. Now my phone is constantly blowing up with text messages and invites to study or go out and do something. My first time around in college I didn't really do a lot outside of studying so, I don't know, maybe having someone more outgoing around me might be a good thing.

- Caleb/Rylee

Rusty/Monica: Anyone looking for a place in Brooklyn?

Because, yep, Katey moved out this weekend.  It happened crazy fast - I refreshed a browser screen at work saw a really good spot show up at the top because the expected tenant had bounced their deposit check, and had Katey and Omar in the next day.  They loved it and signed a lease immediately.  We were packing stuff in boxes practically before Dad had time to freak out.

Not that there was a whole lot to pack; we didn't buy a whole lot we intended to keep that first year because we were kind of broke and didn't see a whole lot of point in buying stuff we'd just be leaving behind, and since then, most of what Katey has bought for herself was clothes and any bigger purchases between the three of us would just stay in the apartment for me and Dad and whoever takes the empty room.  That kind of threw Dad, because I guess when she moved before, there were always boxes of books and records and videotapes, but Katey and I don't have a lot of physical media despite her and Jonah saying we'll regret that someday.

I was kind of surprised just how many outfits Katey had picked up over the last year and a half, though.  She's not some never-wear the-same-thing-twice girl, but she does hands a tendency to buy one or two new things before she and Omar go on vacation, and I guess they add up, and they've gotten nicer, enough that she put a bunch of them in cardboard closets so that they wouldn't get wrinkled rather than folding them up, and those looked like kind of a pain to move around, in part because she would take one side and Dad the other, but they're not the same height so Dad lifting her end would tilt it so it bonked Katey on the head, and then she'd jerk her end up so Dad could see how it felt.

One we got everything down to street level and Omar and his friends arrived with the moving van, Katey shifted to basically directing traffic to let the boys do most of the lifting.  Dad apparently thought that included her and me, and while I did okay - all that time in the gym does pay off, and most of them have already struck out with me enough that wearing the same lycra I jog in didn't draw much comment, especially once they were sweating a bit themselves - she kind of overestimated herself, and looked worn out by the time the truck was empty.  We work out quite a bit together, but it's mostly yoga and the like for these days, and I think she mostly does that to hang out with me.  Even with a good sport top, she really doesn't like running, and weights frustrate her. 

Of course, we were all kind of tired at the end of the day, not surprised that Katey and Omar just wanted to stay in, get the bedroom set up, and pass out.  One of Omar's friends nudged me when Dad hugged Katey tight and said to call her if she needs absolutely anything, asking if they'd ever been more than just friends or roommates, and I said it was hard to explain.  She did pull me in close as we left and took the train back to Brooklyn. 

I'd been downing a lot of Monsters over the day, so I sprinted for the bathroom when I got home, and when I got back out to the living room, Dad had taken off her white T-shirt and was lying down on the couch in her bra, a bag of ice on top of one of her breasts and a beer in her hand.  "You okay, Dad?"

She chuckled.  "Not entirely sure I'm an 'okay dad' right now.  I spent the whole day kind of pretending that I was moving Kutter into college, figuring that would help make me a little more okay with it, but it's like every corner of a box, everything poking out of a box, and every countertop at an odd height decided to punch my right tit, just to remind me that you guys don't need my help and are better at all of this than me.  I can haul piles of books and boxes of beer bottles around at work without bruising myself, but it's like I kept forgetting I was Emilia and had these things today."  She took a drink and sighed.  "I was kind of worried about you doing this first, you know?  You're so outgoing and impulsive and seemed to really get into being Monica before either Katey or I did, I figured you'd be leaving us behind."

"Ah, it's not like Katey's leaving us behind - we're going to see her at trivia tomorrow, even!"  Still a little wired, I started moving around the apartment before stopping at Katey's door.  "What should we do with Katey's stuff?  Like, the original Katey's?"

Dad got up and left the ice on the couch, walking over to have a look over my shoulder.  There was a fair amount still in there, stuff Katey had inherited but didn't care enough about to bring with her.  "Man, I dunno.  Doesn't seem right to throw it away or put it on Marketplace, but you'd think they'd have come back or sent some word if any was important to them."  She stretched and yawned.  "Well, I'm beat.  Am I still Dad enough to tell you not to stay up too late?"

"You can say it, but I have got a lot of caffeine in me."  She laughed, and as I turned around, I hugged her from behind.  "I'm glad you're not moving in with your boyfriend yet."

She reached up and mussed my hair.  "Oh, Jonah and I are a while from that, Rusty.  But don't worry, by the time we are, I'm sure you'll be ready to be on your own!"

And maybe she's right, if only because she was in the shower forever this morning even though she doesn't have to be at work until 2pm!  On that level, it's kind of a shame we probably can't afford this place on our own for very long!

-Rusty/Monica

Toby: Dunias' Summers' End

Is that the way you'd write that?  It's been a while since high school English and they didn't exactly cover this situation, but I kind of want to get right.  It's bad enough folks look at each other knowingly and say ah, ella es estadounidense when they address me in Spanish and I respond in kind, but mangling my native language is something else again!

It's not really getting cool in Miami for the fall (it never really does), but were spending a lot of time in DC these days, and there's a bit of a nip there occasionally, although Dunia insists it's not enough to start wearing pantyhose or tights under our miniskirts yet.  It's surprising what a difference they make, though, and if "hot girl summer" turns into hot girl winter, I'm going to insist. 

See, she's insisted we make the most of the time we're like this.  It started early, since i was pretty down for a while when Gerard made a mess of things with my Mom.  I told him to not be so flamboyant about the cover story that explained where Lambert and I supposedly were over the winter, and I guess he tried, but I don't know which was worse for her between thinking I might be gay enough to spend the winter in that sort of arrangement and being sure he was lying to cover something worse.  Things got around town, she kicked him out, and it was hard enough to find a job that he just picked up and left, eventually crashing with the guys he'd visited the Inn with, who became a straight couple in Baltimore. 

With all that Gerard did, Dunia is probably the best friend I've got left, and after letting me mope for a few days, she decided that we weren't going straight home after work one day, because she needed to update Alicia's wardrobe.  Lambert hadn't bought anything while he was wearing that face, and while Harmon had adapted pretty well, her brain was still kind of stuck in the 1980s on the one hand and not exactly subtle on the other (her idea of "sexy" was closer to "slutty", to hear Dunia describe it).  So we hit some shops, with Dunia asking what I thought as a guy every time she tried something on and then if I'd be embarrassed being seem with her as Dunia and Alicia.  She naturally also found a lot of things that she had to see me try on and that i should buy if only so she'd have them next summer.  We spent a lot of money that afternoon. 

But the weird thing is, it did lift my spirits!  I've made a lot of jokes about women and shopping, I'm sure, but there's something really great about being told you look nice and seeing a friend get prettied up herself.  I don't know if you can buy self-confidence, although I'm sure that's what these places are selling as much as tiny crop-tops and one-piece swimsuits that somehow cover less than bikinis, but Dunia had a great time and it did feel pretty good to know that I could pull off living someone else's life better than Gerard. 

Of course, she also insisted we get some use out of them, so we spent a lot of time on the beaches of Miami and the clubs in whatever city we were in when the sun went down, or even walking around the Smithsonian and other museums in Washington.  The National Mall isn't as welcoming a place as it was when i was going there last year and the State Fair thing was super-lame, but more people flirted than asked what an Afro-Latina girl thought she was doing there.

Granted, we got back on the Miami-DC route in large part because Gerard had wound up nearby and she figured it would be good to keep our circle tight.  I was still kind of upset, but she was right.  She had him book a spot for us at a nice restaurant during mid-afternoon hours when it would be quiet, and while I figured we'd just stay in our uniforms, she'd made sure to bring a sweater that clung to her chest (because she's kind of having fun with Alicia's body, like it's fun to know people are staring rather than doing it from behind), while I was in one of her halter-and-pleated skirt pairings.  We got there first and sat at the bar, getting about one drink in when he came in and waved.  She waved back, and then leaned over to whisper "why didn't you tell me you were so hot?"

I stammered.  "I'm not!  I mean, you've seen pictures of me on Facebook, and if Gerard looks sexy, it's just because he spent too much of my money on clothes and that haircut!"

She laughed.  "Toby, if all it takes is a nice haircut, you're hot!"  Before I could argue, she waved him over, and I got my first good look at the new Gerard/Toby, which was weird.  I know the face and everything pretty well even if I was never one to spend a whole lot of time looking in the mirror, but the way he talked and dressed and held himself just didn't feel like me at all, which isn't something anybody had really told me, either as Dunia's friends and family saying "Dunia, you're acting strange" or her saying she wouldn't do something.

But it turned out okay; he told me he was really sorry about how he made my Mom uncomfortable, and was trying to improve it now that they had a little distance, and had a lot of funny stories about what an old married couple his buddies had become, even though the husband had been a girl and the wife nonbinary (for his part, he usually didn't even notice he was only attracted to women until some guy would hit on him and he wouldn't feel it).  He'd also somehow landed a job I couldn't imagine I'd ever get, some sort of outreach position with the city government, and he said it wasn't that hard, you just had to be confident in your interview, figure out how in lined up with what you're good at, and work on the rest.

Anyway, it was a really good meal - Gerard has been exploring DC's apparently great restaurants and decided to introduce us to Ethiopian - and we agreed that next time, we'd try and hang out in a club or something.  I wasn't quite so enthusiastic about that, but Dunia was, and she told me that I should practice, because my next girlfriend wouldn't have any idea what kind of jackpot she'd hit with a combination of farmboy good looks, any stylish things I inherited from Gerard, and knowing what she wanted from the inside.  Which is kind of when the clubbing stepped up a bit, and it hasn't been so bad.  I can tell when a guy is just using a line or seems genuinely interested in me a lot better now, or when brushing up against me is accidental or deliberate or somewhere in between,  I'm dancing a lot better too, although I'm not sure how much of that will transfer once I don't have Dunia's butt.

(BTW, the way she rolls Alicia's when I say something that she calls "complaining about the amazing ass I gave you" is kind of hilarious.)

Heck, last night, I actually wound up making out with a guy in a DC club.  It had been a long day - we were supposed to make a round trip, but the first flight was delayed an hour and a half, which led to a lot of people being rude as if Dunia and I had anything to do with the engine, so another crew took the return flight and we had an overnight.  I drank a little more than usual, but the dancing felt really good - sometimes you really need to move after being trapped in a plane for that long! - and this guy was funny and sympathetic, and when we wound up near a wall, his hands were on my butt and my boobs and his muscles felt kind of good.  The kiss was a surprise, and so was the tongue, but it made me realize just how long it had been since I'd experienced that, and I don't know where it would have led if his buddies hadn't come by and said they'd been called in - I guess they're cops or first-responders or something - and we exchanged numbers.  It was kind of silly that Dunia high-fived me after that, but she said that her boyfriend being away didn't mean both of us shouldn't get laid for the twentieth time and what happened in DC could stay in DC.

We had a late flight home, enough that I collapsed in bed as soon as I got there, only to have payback slap me in the face after just three or four hours of sleep as my phone buzzed me awake.

It was Dunia's boyfriend Luis, and he was crying, saying that he'd been injured pretty severely in a training accident, would probably be rotated home in a couple of weeks, and didn't know what was coming after that.

I said of course I'd be there for him when he did, before immediately texting Dunia about what the heck that means under these circumstances, and writing all this because I really didn't want to go downstairs and discuss it with her dad.  But I'm guessing the super-fun summer is gonna be over soon.

-Toby/Dunia