Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Cal / Angie: Outsider

I hope you don't expect me to start telling any stories like James. He can have all the fun he wants. I'm not in the mood. I work and work and work some more, and when I get home, I just shut myself up in my room and stay quiet, lie still, sometimes cry. I still find it all so frustrating.

Not the being a girl thing. I don't love it, but I can live with it. I hate that I can live with it, at least parts of it, but it's the whole package. The add-ons. Being Angie.

If I could, I'd quit her job. I hate it, and I'm not good at it, and I think people notice. My co-worker Dave definitely thinks it's odd that I've lost my knack for talking up the new holistic products, my "enthusiasm for life." Like somebody ripped my spirit out. And I can't tell him that it's because somebody literally did just that. I don't believe in this hippie stuff, I believe more in science and actual medicine. It's one thing to sell someone a dreamcatcher because they think it's cool-looking. It's something else when they say they totally feel it focussing their consciousness when they sleep.

But can I really make a decision like that? Part of me thinks it's smarter to gut it out for 6 more months, even though I'm pulling my hair out. Finding a job isn't impossible, and if I do it right I can quit on good terms and keep the door open for Angie to get her job back when she returns. And despite the hippies being supposedly chill, I can see their eyes drift downward to my chest. But I guess I'd get that anywhere. The good news is that their focus returns to my face when they realize there isn't anything special there. Not nothing, just nothing on display. I just realized over the last few months that as a guy, I totally had that reflex, but as a girl not so much.

I do sometimes check girls out. Not necessarily the way I used to when I was a guy (boobs-face-boobs,) but I watch girls, look at their face, watch their eyes as they shop with their boyfriends, watch their hips sway when we're playing folk music or whatever. I get a little angry. I see the boyfriends glancing around at other girls and I get angrier, especially if it's at me. I feel like I'm completely outside the boy-girl dynamic now. And it's so lonely here.

David asked me out. I turned him down, obviously... I was so embarrassed and even hurt that he didn't just want to be my friend, because I guess guys and girls can't be friends like that. I know I didn't have any "just friends" girls, and that's another fact I'm embarrassed about. I tried to be nice about it, but now there's that
awkwardness. I don't want to be around him. He's so nice, but now everything's changed, wrecked. Every time I see him I see the guy who probably had fantasies about me, and he probably sees me as the bitch who turned him down. He seems less interested in me now, just short of being outright mean to me, but it's still immature. I should probably just get out of all this.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

James/Keisha: Night out

After I posted last weekend about wanting to go out every now and again I got a text from Grant - like immediately - asking if she could help me out.

For those of you who haven't been paying much attention, Grant became Sophie, the punky, curvy cute girl in this random mix of chicks. And then he disappeared. I mean, not literally, we had a pretty good idea where he/she was, and occasionally we'd let her know we were doing something and she'd come along, but we all figured she was super busy or else... well, I dunno, super into being Sophie.

It was a little of both. I don't know all the details, but Sophie has two jobs, one in an office and one as a waitress on weekends, and she has a pretty big circle of friends that bring her all sorts of places. She says to me "I thought, I could be like you guys and mope about the situation or I could take advantage and dive in."

So I say "Hey, I haven't exactly been moping. Drinking a little, but not moping. I'm ready for this girly shit. I just had nobody to hang out with."

I had no idea how much further along she was, though. When she showed up at my place she was in a strapless minidress under a badass leather jacket. When she removed it all of Sophie's tattoos were on display. No bra. She was quite a hottie. Girls haven't been doing much for me lately, but I had to at least stop and stare.

I was all set to dress in something similar but she stopped me. "You're not ready."

And I said "Fuck off, when we were guys I was the one who actually had a life."

And she says "Trust me, you are not ready for the kind of attention you get when you look like this." She tells me to wear a plain white tank top and a cardigan and jeans. Like, are we going to a club, or a library?

"Neither," she says, "We're going to a party. Don't dress like you're there to get laid unless you're actually there to get laid."

I looked at her cleavage, then back up at her face. She gave me a little nod. "Holy shit," I said. "You've got some secrets." Then she helped me do my makeup. "Don't overdo it, but don't do nothing."

On the way, I asked if this was okay to post on the blog, since I know she never posted on here, and she said she doesn't mind if everyone knows certain things, but she doesn't want to sit around writing about herself because thinking too hard about it hurts.

I kinda get that.

The party ended up being at some college guys' house that she met at a punk show. Some of the girls were dressed like her, but plenty were dressed like me. I walked around just kind of looking at how all the girls were and I suddenly got very freaked out. Pretty much every girl there was sitting or standing near a guy.

I started to get really nervous. Like, this was happening. I've been around guys as a girl, on the street or in a the store... and they're not always subtle about checking me out... but now I was in it with no safety net. This was down and dirty girlness.

I started to question why I even came. I reminded myself that as a guy I partied all the time, and I missed it. But almost literally the moment I got in there, I realized how different the situation was from what I was used to. I was suddenly thankful that Sophie got me to dress down.

I watched her. She got into "Sophie" mode immediately, of course, greeting the people she knew, introducing me around. She seemed happy and comfortable. Guys were leering right down her top when she wasn't looking (or maybe even when she could see, I know I didn't bother hiding it half the time.) And she just played it off like it was nothing. I found myself slouching, trying to lean against the wall or in a corner so people wouldn't look at me.

All the guys made me nervous. When I was a guy, if I compared myself to other guys, I'd say I was average sized, regular shoulders, tall but not too tall. As Keisha I am so small that even the "average size" guys kind of have to lean down to look at me.

I went over to the couch and sat down alone. Before I knew it, a guy sat right next to me and started chatting me up. I wanted to tell him to buzz off, but I didn't want to be rude. I was just suddenly not in the mood at all. And I know that when I was a guy, if a girl blew me off like that, it would have hurt.

He was fat. And not like "party animal athlete" fat, but just a regular, boring chubby guy. I took a look at him and realized that he probably approached me because most of the other girls at the party were too good for him and he knew it.

I used him as my shield. His name was AJ. I let him tell me about Canadian Football, which... I mean, I'm a lifelong Pats fan, but Keisha probably doesn't know anything about any football so I could play dumb and let him think I was interested. After forty minutes or so, he put his arm around me, and I took his wrist and put his hand on his own knee. "Hey, I'm sorry... it's not happening, man."

He got really annoyed and walked off, and then came back a while later. By this point I was talking to girls only. I don't think I give off a lesbian vibe or anything, but I'm getting good at "girl talk." I said that I was basically new in town (which is true) and I didn't know any good shops (also true) and talked fashion, which is admittedly kind of boring, but the fun part was getting to talk to girls about their favourite places to buy sexy underwear. And even though I couldn't get a boner right now if I wanted to, I made sure to bank that info away for later. I felt like I was really passing as one of them.

So AJ comes back and he's even drunker, and he starts apologizing and I say it's okay, I know guys do stuff like that, I'm just not that kind of girl. So he asks what kind of girl I am, and I say I don't know yet.

So he says "How about we go upstairs and find out?"

And I just started laughing. And I apologized but told him that just wasn't what I was looking for tonight. So he asked if he could get my number for when I am looking for that, and I still said no. Then he tried to give me his number in case I changed my mind, and... I took it, because it made him go away.

On the way home, Sophie and I slipped back into Grant and James and she asked me why I wanted to go out so bad when it was just smarter to stay at home and wait for this all to blow over.

I told her that sometimes, back in Mass, I used to speed at night. Run red lights. Whatever. Race, if I could. Just because I wanted to see the worst shit I could do and still live through it. Come as close as I could to totally wrecking myself. My life just doesn't feel like it's worth it if I'm not testing the limits. Then I became a girl and I got scared. Scared of my own shadow. Scared people would look at me and see a guy in girl's clothing, trapped in this body, so I didn't do anything. And I hated it. I wanted to run, but I can't. So I have to blast through it. I have to start speeding again, doing dangerous shit and seeing how far this goes. I don't let anyone tel me not to do something, I don't stay in bounds. Fuck that.

And she looked at me and shrugged and said "Yeah, but when you speed, you put other people's lives at risk too."

And I just said whatever because she missed the point.

So I've got AJ's number in my phone. And for the past few weeks, I've looked at it in my contacts and thought about running that red light.

Saturday, November 09, 2013

James/Keisha

Wow, I don't want to say that my life as a guy in a girl's body got boring quickly, but man.

Like, first it was stressful, then it was kind of exciting, and now it's like... what. Now I just want it to be over, even though, shit, I dunno what I'm gonna do when I get my body back. Assuming I do.

Same goes for all of us. Like, these girls had lives that were all nicely set up. When we dove in, we, like, made a bit of a splash... I nearly got fired and kicked out of Keisha's apartment, but mostly it's just "do as you're told and don't piss anyone off." And here's the thing... I hate that, but I get it.

I read some of where Roy was complaining about me at work. Nothing she hasn't said to me in person, don't worry. And it's all true. I could give a fuck if I get Keisha fired, no offense to her. This is probably not her dream job. I don't know what would be, because I feel like I've said three sentences to her since I became her, but I doubt it's this. Pushing books. Like, who reads? (A lot of Canadians, apparently, the store seems to be doing ok.) I show up on time, I try not to be too much of a bitch, they can't fire me.

Then in October it was randomly Canadian "Thanksgiving," which was surprising, but Trish gave me a head's up on that.

The roommate... look, I don't know her story. If I asked, she would probably look at me like "I already told you this when we met." Sometimes she wants to be my friend, sometimes she hates my guts. So long as I pay my half of the rent, again, she's practically a ghost.

I've been asking Roy for details about his sex life, but she says she won't tell me because she doesn't want to encourage any bad behavior "I have to partake in some activities because I inherited a situation," she says. with her nose in the air. "You're better off not upsetting the apple cart." I say fuck that.

Convenient excuse. I'm not saying I want to get out there and get some action or anything: I still shudder at the idea of a dude touching me like that, but I can see the appeal. Yeah, I said it. Some dudes are attractive. And some girls want sex. I'm not sure if I'm one of them yet, but I can't totally say I'm not.

Know how I know? Because I know. We all have needs. I'm speaking for all of us. They don't have to tell me, I just know. Trish was dead-on right when he said to Cal that three of us have definitely gone downtown on the new bodies. Four if he was including himself. Cal might be too uptight to try it, but you can see in her eyes she's dying to break the seal. The rest of us are a little more "in touch" with ourselves. And hey, there's no harm done.

What guy wouldn't, given the chance? If we're stuck in these bodies, and we knew there was something fun we could do with them, why wouldn't we?

But what it comes down to is, I'm just bored. I've got to pass the time somehow. I want to meet people who aren't from the Lowell Crew, because I none of them are ready to venture out beyond movie nights or the occasional group hangout. We're legal age in a city where streets close down for pub crawls... I want to mix it the fuck up!

For god's sake, we spent Halloween watching the movie Halloween. We wasted the one night of the year where it's acceptable for us to wear ridiculous costumes, you know, even though we're kind of always in disguise.

It's not about sex. It's about living. Drinking, fighting, fucking, meeting randos -- and maybe hooking up -- that's life, man, and I'm not cancelling it just because I look like some uptight Canadian chick. So tonight, I'm gonna cut loose, head out on my own, see what happens. Peace, nerds.