Aidan/Emilia: Hardest Moment as a Dad

I'd had vague ideas of seeing the Dylan movie after my double today - the kids roll their eyes at the trailer, because Bob Dylan is just an old weirdo to them, they imprinted on Walk Hard young and can't take any musician biography seriously, and apparently retain the teenage boy view of Timothée Chalamet as kind of too pretty and effeminate rather than swooning like young women - but the shop was nearly as crazy as the day after Thanksgiving, so I wound up just heading home with the intent of seeing if the bubble bath with a bottle of wine was all it's cracked up to be.  When I got up to the apartment, though, the light was on and Kutter was sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the couch, three empty beer bottles on the floor in front of her and a half-finished one in her hand. 

It made me stop short, some instinct telling me to give her space rather than run up to her, though I squatted to get in her eyeline.  "Hey, bud, what's wrong?"

She took a deep breath and a swig from the bottle.  "I'm pretty sure I know why Katey isn't coming back."

"Oh?"  I didn't feel a need to prompt; like with Rusty at the gym, Kutter will let worries out if you give her space and a little permission. 

And it came out.  There were already a bunch of cars in the driveway and on the curb, so the rideshare driver dropped her a couple houses down.  There was a girl about her age playing with a baby in the snow in one yard, and she lit up when she saw "Katey", picking the boy up and waving.  Katey recognized her from Instagram, and she introduced her to the kid, then expressed surprise that she was back after mostly spending the holidays at school. She said she watched all Katey's TikToks, but then lowered her voice.  "Looks like a crowded house over there.  I'm going to be here all weekend, so stop in any time you need a break. Any. Time."

Kutter thought that was odd, but maybe it was some private joke.  She took a breath and went into Katey's family home.

It was not like our Christmases; there were little kids running around, multiple people unwrapping at once rather than building suspense and asking what gave you that idea, cousins who wanted to know everything about the big city, and uncles and aunts that she did a pretty good job of pretending to know by noting anyone calling and responding to names.  Dinner was noisy chaos.  She was ready to go to sleep by ten, earning cracks about not getting much of New York's nightlife.

Around 1am, she woke up.  Katey's father was straddling her, unbuckling his pants.

"What?!"

She nodded.  "Yeah.  So, obviously, I started to scream, and he put a hand over my mouth, like, hard enough to press my head down into the mattress.  I remembered the lamp on the bedside table, and reached out for it, but he used his other hand to pin it down.  So, I figured, I don't go to the gym like you and Rusty, but I've got really bony knees, and I rammed one right into his balls as hard as I could."

I gaped at the matter-of-fact way she said that., but..  "Good for you."

"Yeah.  He fell backward, which meant he was kind of sitting on my legs and too heavy to move, so I grabbed that lamp and smashed it into the side of his head.  Twice, when it looked like he was about to punch me in the face."  She took a deep breath.  "He fell off the bed, so I jumped up and ran outside, barefoot, and banged on the next-door neighbor's door.  I kept looking over my shoulder, and I think the door to Katey's parents' house had opened by the time her friend's dad took a look at me and yanked me inside."

She looked at her beer, and put it down, thinking.  "So, obviously, this had happened before, but I'm guessing that the last time, Katey didn't say quite so plainly that her father tried to rape her, because they all kind of winced at the word.  Then they asked if I wanted to call the police, and I said what I wanted was to get the fuck back to New York and never come back there again."  She stopped and looked up at me.  "Should I have stayed and filed a report?  He deserves to go to jail, but I just wanted to run like a coward--"

"Hey."  I inched a little closer.  "Given the situation w're in, you probably did all you could do.  Just practically, by the time it were to go to trial, it would be someone else who would have to testify against him.  Plus, I looked up sex crime statistics when we first changed, and--"

She nodded.  "Yeah, so did I.  Still..."  She finished her beer.  "I just don't get it, though!  It's sick, and I'm not even sexy like you and Rusty!  Why the hell would he do this to me, or her?"  She stumbled forward and grabbed me, burying her face in my shoulder for the first time in a long time.

I let out a sigh of relief, because I had just started to figure she might be afraid of me after that.  I patted her on the back.  "Hey, I don't know, and I'm glad I don't know, and you don't know.  I'm glad the thought just doesn't enter our heads.  I don't think it's even about attraction, though.  I think he just wanted to have his daughter completely under his thumb and scared of him.  Heck, coming back for the first time in years, he probably wanted to show Katey who was boss."

I could feel her nodding, and then something struck her, and she pulled back.  "Wait, what about Katey?  Why the hell didn't she warn me about this?  Did she like it?  I mean, okay, it was scary, but the whole flight back here, I couldn't help but think how lucky I was because if he'd really wanted me unable to move, he could have, but if she didn't resist--"

"Hey.  You don't know, I don't know.  Look, think of how scared and confused you are now, and imagine, well, I don't want to say imagine it was your dad--"

"You would never!"

"Thank you.  But someone like that can tell his daughter it's normal and she'll believe him.  Maybe right up until she gets a chance to leave."  I shrugged.  "I mean, I don't know.  This is all new to me, too. Real girls would probably know better.  Or maybe not.  Shame makes people do strange things, especially when the person in question shouldn't be ashamed."

She shrugged.  "I guess.  Anyway, they offered to book me a ticket and lend me some clothes, but then I realized I had left my wallet and phone over in the bedroom, so the dad said to stay there.  I did, and about half an hour later he was back with my purse, phone, and carry-on bag.  I'm not sure how he convinced Katey's father to let him in to get them.  I had to connect in Atlanta to get back here, but I was out of that town early this morning.  Then you got in, and we're allll caught up."

She stood, grabbing her head and looking kind of dizzy.  "Whoa, I don't think I've slept or eaten anything but the beer since then.  I think I need to sleep more, though.  G'night."

I said I'd leave my door open if she needed to talk more, and she nodded.  She'd started to walk off when I said "one more thing."

She looked at me, curious, as I stood.  "Part of me wants to let that thing about how you're not sexy go, because, well, it's weird for me, and as a dad I don't necessarily want you thinking of yourself as a sexy girl, but you are.  Like, I'm not sexy like this.  I'm what guys your age, your real age, think is sexy before they've learned what they really like.  You're kind and funny and good at what you do and you seem at ease in your skin, even though it's not your skin anymore.  You're sexy as heck and you shouldn't think that's a bad thing or try to be less than you are because of one bad day."

The corners of his lips twitched upward for the first time that night.  "Uh, okay.  Thanks."  Then she turned and went to her room.

Me, I immediately texted Rusty to find out if she was all right.  She texted back a thumbs up and then a selfie of herself drinking margaritas with some of Monica's cousins.

Don't know if I'll get to sleep myself.

-Aidan/Emilia

Aidan/Emilia: Well, that was a weird Christmas

It starts with the kids and I actually kind of more in sync than most mornings - they both had to catch morning flights, so we wound up sitting around the little tree at 5am, dressed in slippers and the sweatpants and t-shirts we'd slept in.  Didn't even put on a bra, so I'm sure my nipples will be in every picture we took.  I laughed, saying that it seemed like only yesterday they were so eager to see what Santa had brought them that they got up before dawn until they became teenagers who slept in practically until noon.  Rusty said that still sounded like a great plan.

After last week's hemming and hawing, I eventually decided to get them things that would be useful now and that I could see them bringing home.  For Kutter, that was a camera and some accessories - a ring light, a gimbal stabilizer, and an external hard drive.  The camera probably wasn't much better than what she's got in her phone, but it's good to have something built for a job sometimes.  Rusty got a Blu-ray player and what the guy at the store assured me was a good starter pack of Korean movies that could be hard to find on streaming services.  This apartment actually doesn't have any device that plays discs (welcome to being a zoomer, Aidan!) and the one in the living room back home is old.

With each other, they were oddly sensible - chocolates and coffees and craft beers and bottles of hot sauce with an alarming amount of flames on the packages (Rusty, of late, has discovered that she really likes a lot of spice and heat on occasion, after she went to some local ethnic eatery and they deemed her Asian enough to handle the "real" version of a dish), stuff that they figured they would use up in the next few months even if they only had the good stuff every once in a while.  

I got some of that from them, too; ciders and the fanciest box of artisanal peanut butter cups you've ever seen (they've been buying me the tree-shaped boxes of Reese's since they were five and six, so this is a bit of an upgrade).  Kutter got me an autographed "Advanced Reading Copy" of a thriller by a favorite author that should be big next summer.  Rusty discovered that apparently Atari still exists and is selling updated versions of 30-year-old game consoles, so she got me one of those and some cartridges, which I guess means I'm not totally introducing her to the idea of physical media.

(There were also some gag gifts that I'd prefer not to discuss - what was the idea behind competing over who could get the other the most outlandish heels?)

Then Kutter beat Rusty to the shower but was quicker than usual, and soon they were dressed, made-up, and on their way out the door.  I felt like I should have accompanied them to the airport or seen them off, but it would have just been taking the subway even if one wasn't going to JFK and the other to Laguardia.  Just a reminder that I was not properly dad-ing.

Soon, though, it was my turn to shower and dress for the holiday, which I'd left in the hands of the kids, telling them this would not be a good time for pranks.  I still kind of felt like they were kidding me - candy-cane tights, a sparkly green skirt, and a sweater with a reindeer on it that didn't hide much of my figure and which didn't feel entirely appropriate for Zooming with the parents - but apparently, it was:  Emilia's mom and her little sister were wearing matching sweaters even though full breasts apparently run in the family and her sister is still a senior in high school.  When I opened the box they'd shipped, it was from Victoria's Secret and contained both flannel pajamas and some new variety of bra that Emilia's mother swears by.  I'd sent gift cards, and so had they, with a pre-loaded Visa debit card discretely slipped into a card so the little sister didn't have to see it.  We somehow managed small talk with me drawing on Facebook and "Mom" remembering what it was like to just be starting out in a new city.

The call with her father was a little different.  There was a stepmother who said hi at the start but then busied herself in the background; I gather she and Emilia never became close.  Her dad asked if I was already looking for new work since the bookstore would likely be a last-in-first-out situation, and I lied and said yes.  Lots more questions about if I was being careful in the big city, and I admit I did chuckle at one point when he used some exact words I'd spoken to Rusty & Kutter, although I bluffed and said we'd had this exact conversation at graduation when he asked what was funny.  Anyway, I'd sent him gift cards and he had done the same, plus some nice gloves that you don't have to take off to use your phone and a knit jester's hat.  He didn't feel the need to be discrete about having sent a prepaid debit card.

After that second call, I did the thing where I retreated to Emilia's room and flopped backward on her bed, feet touching the floor, and just staring at the ceiling for a bit.  I used to do it because being a girl has just been too much for me, but today it was the lying, and also something seemingly bigger than that.  The parents were my age, and Emilia's sister less than a year older than Kutter, and it was something to really do the full role-reversal; dizzyingly strange at points and all too easy at others.  It's one thing to put on a bra and work an entry-level job and scrape to pay rent but then come home and be able to be yourself with your kids (I've done some of that before and at a certain level you just accommodate your body until you can tune any signals of discomfort it's sending out), but immersing yourself in someone else's life, even for a couple of hours, is something different.

And on top of that, I knew that pretty soon, Kutter & Rusty were going to be doing it even more than I was.  Maybe better?  After a while, it led me to thinking about the guilt I'd felt about not being able to drive them to the airport earlier, and how over the past couple of months, I've slowly been relating to them more as roommates than as Dad, even with the morning's sentimental gifts, and they were about to get the better part of a week of people just relating to them as parents with their kids.  And mothers!  They would have mothers for the first time in a decade!  Two people doting on them and worrying about them that they didn't have to share with their brothers!

I don't think I quite had a panic attack, but I laid there a while.  Then, some time later, I realized I was hungry, because I hadn't actually had any breakfast and it was 1pm or so by then.

For some folks, that's bad, they'll feel like they don't deserve food or binge or the like, but it tends to hit me as "here's a problem you can deal with, so tend to that".  So I did.  I grabbed a coat, plus the gloves and hat Emilia's father had given me, and went downstairs, glad I was in New York.  Lots of places were closed, but lots of places weren't, and while they were quieter than usual, they weren't sad, empty places that reminded you that you were sad and lonely.  No, there were lots of people grabbing a slice of pizza for lunch for whatever their own reasons were and it was kind of no big deal.

Then I kept going, explored New York at Christmas.  Sure, it doesn't quite snow like it used to here, so maybe it's not the exact sort of magical that it used to be, but I only saw that in the movies and on TV, so I walked through Central Park, through Times Square, up Broadway, and every other thing Emilia's phone could find that was a noteworthy Christmas decoration.  And the thing about New York's bigness is that, while it's often annoying when you're packed into a bus or tourists are choking downtown, it can also mean that things can be done at scale.  Some of it just isn't possible anywhere else, certainly not in our suburb or the nearest city.

Of course, another part of New York is that it gets dark at 4:15 or so this time of year on top of being cold.  I decided to treat myself, found a nice steakhouse, and let them all wonder about the pretty girl having a steak, red wine, and ice cream by herself on Christmas.  Then back home and more time playing Atari than since I was eight (though we probably had a Nintendo by then).

And then, writing this, because the crazy day seemed to need summing up.  Tomorrow, back to work!

-Aidan/Emilia

Jordan/Yuan-Wei: Could Be Worse!

Hope I didn't get folks too worked up over the last post.  Anyway, Dominic had a rough night of it - compound fracture and what is apparently way more internal bleeding than you want from the femoral artery as a result.  I mean, you want none, obviously, but I feel like transfusions for "just" a broken leg is kind of alarming!

If it was alarming to me, it was absolutely panic-inducing to him, so I wound up in "reassuring girlfriend" mode the next day - no, I was not just attracted to you for your body, and it's not nearly broken enough for me to put me off, you'll heal up, and be back at risking your body/skillfully making it look like you've risked your body in a couple months - which, admittedly, is not natural to me.  I'm not a bitch, I don't think, but there's still a lot of New York asshole in me which is not exactly helpful when someone feels legitimately down or isn't used to busting your chops as meaning "see, it could be worse" rather than "it's worse than you think".  Trying to quickly think of solutions when he's down, that sort of thing.

And, like, trying to make sure he's not down for very long.  There are logistical considerations in fucking someone whose full leg is in a cast and not supposed to have any weight put on it, but we're figuring our way around them.  Purely for the purposes of making sure he knows he's no less a man in this situations, of course.

I kid, but that sort of temporary handicap is no joke, especially in a place like Hong Kong where folks often have tiny, cramped apartments and some of the elevators are like sixty years old and break down a lot.  Dominic's apartment, for example, is on the sixth floor of his building and he's often joked about the stairs being his workout.  His parents are in a high-rise whose elevator doesn't have any problems but which is just a bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bath, since they downsized after he moved out.  Which leaves me.  I don't know if I'm really rich right now - Chen-ai/Bingbing didn't exactly drain the family accounts but she sure as fuck convinced the nice lady living her life that she deserved a good chunk of it - but I've got a nice condo with a spare bedroom should we not decide to sleep in the same bed for whatever reason, and the building is relatively new and reliable.  There's the family house, but...  Well, I'm not sure what to do with it, to be honest, but that's a whole other thing.

But, yeah, Dominic is moving in, at least for the next couple of months, a lot sooner than I expected we'd be having this conversation.  We've gone over to his place and brought a lot of clothes over, and he insisted on being the one to buy a cheap bit of plastic storage to keep them in.  So far, we're not clashing too much, except over breakfast, when I am trying to get out of the habit of grabbing the closest thing Hong Kong has to a New York bagel and coffee en route to work because he'll make dim sum.  Along those lines, he and his parents are not really sure what to think about just how American the contents of my apartment are.  The place you see the most Chinese characters is one the Blu-ray shelf and the pantry, whereas my jottings on the refrigerator's notepad are all in English and so are most of the books and magazines lying around.

More than being generally Western - which isn't that big a deal; folks in this city have been using a lot of English and getting into Western things to look worldly and sophisticated for a long time, and the transition to sucking up to the Mainland instead is kind of happening slowly and reluctantly - it's my place.  Me, Jordan Chang, not Jordan Lee Yuan-Wei.  And I suspect that while that just looks eccentric to friends and lovers who pop in for a visit or stay the night, it's probably pretty fucking weird for Dominic when he's got time to settle in and look around.  Like, why does the Christmas card from a random-seeming family from New York have a place of prominence while the one from my mother (you know, Chen-ai, or the while lady posing as her) doesn't?  How would someone who went to college in Boston know this family from New York, getting all these texts at odd hours and there was a package with some Christmas presents, and do you know what it fucking costs to ship stuff internationally these days?

I'm not worried he's going to find out my secret and have some sort of gay-panic freakout; the Inn's curse kind of protects me from that, which becomes weirdly convenient once it's not the most fucking frustrating thing in the world.  But, ugh, I'm not looking forward to coming up with weird stories (which you kind of have to after the face I made when he guessed that I had dated my kid brother at some point) or pushing my original life even further into the background.  But I guess that's what you kind of have to do when your new one fills out like this.

And I guess I can; Jonah is getting married next year and seems to be making her peace with it.  I just wan't figuring on doing it the week I'm exchanging a lot of Christmas greetings with my American friends and family, is all.

-Jordo

Aidan/Emilia: Christmas Shopping

So much of it!  And not just because of all the hours I'm working at the bookshop (lots of overtime - a couple folks quit and someone chose a lousy week to have Covid)!

This is not, by the way, a "Oh, now you know what ladies go through at the holidays" thing.  I've been a single dad for over a decade managing Christmas decorations and shopping on my own, and sometimes money has been tight.  It's just figuring out what would be appropriate 

For instance, we dug through the back of various closets and found that there was a small artificial tree and a string of LED lights that Emilia had apparently bought for her dorm room or college apartment.  It's small, maybe the and a half feet tall, but so is the apartment.  We pushed the coffee table into a corner and set it up in top of that.  Kutter and Rusty are going to have to improvise foot rests for when they're gaming on the couch, but they made that sacrifice willingly. 

Decorating ours, though, was surprisingly deflating.  There are years printed on most ornaments, whether store-bought or homemade, and every year I discover anew that they can be profoundly powerful reminders of how Kutter and Rusty have grown and what has persisted, what Christmas was like for me as a kid, and remember the ones we spent as a family before losing their mother.  The various ones Emilia, Katey, and Monica have left behind mean little to us.  Maybe even less, because they were willing to abandon them. We wound up putting them back in their boxes and buying some new ones.  I went for a couple specifically featuring New York while the girls went goofy - honestly, who even puts a loop of string on a miniature pair of heels and calls that festive? - so that they would mean something later. 

It's trickier to do the same sort of thing with the actual shopping - should I be shopping for teenage boys or young women?  It doesn't seem right to look for things that they will be leaving behind in a few months - although I suppose they may be mementos of their time here - nor to get them things that won't seem relevant until May.  After all, buying teenagers something that they'll still be interested in six months from now is difficult in the best cases, and who knows how this experience will leave them changed on the other side..

Yeah, I guess I'm shopping for Katey and Monica.  Of course, there's also the question of the family living our lives now, so maybe we should be getting "Aidan", "Kutter", and "Rusty" something.  The kids and I have talked it over a bit, but we're actually having a little trouble coming up with something appropriate that we wouldn't have mentioned three months ago.  Rusty as suggested just a card involving Santa dresses and the caption "Wish You Were Here!", at least until I pointed out that the girls living their lives were also underage and that would be inappropriate on so many levels.  She still wants the picture, though.

And then, there's the big one - these girls' families.

It's the twenty-first century, so there are social media posts hinting at interests and Amazon wishlists for when you don't want to leave anything to chance.  I've been texting with Emilia's (divorced) parents to get ideas about what to get her sister and vice versa, and also to let them know that their daughter won't be able to make it home because I'm working late Christmas Eve and early on the 26th, because rent in Brooklyn is expensive.  They're disappointed, but understand.  It's kind of a relief to me, since it means that there's a good chance I'll get through this whole thing and not have to lie about who I am to their faces and think about why Emilia left them behind.

The kids aren't so lucky.

Katey and Monica were both only children, and with neither Kutter nor Rusty having taken any time off, they've got a little PTO and floating holidays that they can't roll over into next year, so there's really no excuse, especially since Monica's father already bought her a round-trip ticket.  Katey's parents haven't been quite so insistent, but they too mentioned that they haven't seen her since graduation, so she's booked a ticket herself.

On the one hand, this is logical, they answer to "Monica" and "Katey" without ever missing a beat by now, never forget themselves and do things a woman wouldn't, and they've been less timid about responding to folks who knew the originals on Facebook or the like than I am.  On the other hand, despite them working full-time jobs and not sticking to soda when we do bar trivia every Monday and regularly getting into taxis driven by strangers on their own, they're kids.  This will be their first unsupervised travel, and as pretty young women besides.  On the one hand, it probably shouldn't scare me too much - they handle the New York subway system on a daily basis, which is probably more dangerous than suburbs and regional airports, on top of being more complex.

They're not that worried about shopping, saying that whatever they get, these other parents will appreciate the thought, and vice versa.  Which, I'll admit, is true.  It still seems overwhelming to me, though.

-Aidan/Emilia

Jordan/Yuan-Wei: Too much time to think right now

I mentioned a few months ago that I was trying not to jinx something, but I guess I may as well.  His name is Dominic Wong Tak-Lok and I think I may love him.

We met on a dating app, as you do, but it actually started to take off when we crossed paths at work.  He's a guy who would be about to break big if Hong Kong's film industry was what it once was, a pretty darn good screen fighter in one of the big stunt teams who has the charisma to jump to speaking roles; he's had a couple things - mostly stuff that goes straight to the likes of iQIY - where he's a sort of featured heavy, the guy that gives the star a run for his money on the way to the big showdown with the villain and lodges himself in your memory because that guy was sort of cool.  Anyway, he was in a fantasy action thing and I came on-set to set up mo-cap when needed and show the director monster designs to make sure that there was actually room for a bulky ten-foot-tall beastie on screen.  So I was putting some dots on him, he said funny meeting you here and poured on the flirting; I wasn't seeing anyone exclusively and he was my type, so I went with it.

Not that "my type" is particularly specific:  He's tall, well-muscled but just short of the super-sculpted way that Benny says isn't achievable without risking dehydration, and gets a nice five-o'clock shadow.  Some of his family emigrated back in the 1990s, so he's spent a fair amount of time in Vancouver, which means his English is pretty good and he doesn't think I'm weird for preferring baseball to soccer, and he respects that I'm good at my job so he doesn't try to mansplain movies to me.  He's got an impressive, responsive dick.

I wasn't expecting much more than some good sex and some good times.  I've been a woman for ten years, even if I figured to become a man again during the first, and though I've had boyfriends, I really only got hurt by something ending once, and that involved a bunch of weird Chen-ai Inn Conspiracy Shit.  I kind of figured that's how it was going to be, just because of who I am.  I figure that the Inn alters the parts of your brains that control gender identity and sexual orientation but don't mess with anything that speaks to your experiences or skills (I've read so much fucking neuroscience of gender for dummies shit since becoming Yuan-Wei) and just kind of figured that who I am was kind of set by the first twenty-five years of my life, where I was overweight, angry, overlooked by girls and pissed off about it.  I kind of go into relationships expecting the collapse.  And sometimes I wonder if how I behave as the girl in a relationship is really me, or me trying to be what I wanted girls to be as a guy, or how I think girls act, or how I think girls should act.

(If a therapist went to the Inn they could make so much fucking money from zoom sessions with folks who can't tell a regular shrink why they're fucked up)

It's been really good.  We both tend to work long hours, but Hong Kong is a good city for when you're looking to have a date at 3am, and when he's not working, he's a good cook and not weird about how I make more money than him so I sometimes pay for dinner.  We go to movies and elbow each other to point out stuff that we think is kind of funny or weird from a behind-the-scenes perspective.  His family is pretty cool about me being a couple years older and doesn't talk about my eggs running out or anything.  He has yet to fail to bring me to orgasm, and all that martial-arts training seems to translate well to how I kind of like being picked up and kind of manhandled without crossing a line.  Like, he knows his own strength and that I like to feel some power without actually getting hurt.

And, right now, sitting in this hospital, I wish the stunt coordinator on his current job had been similarly committed to people not getting fucking hurt.

it's so fucking ridiculous, because I was there to make sure something like this didn't happen, helping with green-screen work so that we could put a fake cement wall in behind him so that if he didn't manage to leap onto the car's hood in time, we wouldn't be crushed between them.  We do a lot of that stuff - folks don't realize how much CGI is letting folks do practical stunts safely - but some jackass figured they could store equipment behind the green screen, and Dominic's leg got pinned.  It's a pretty gnarly fracture - they brought him into the OR rather than just setting it with a cast - and they won't let me into his room, even though I'm the one that called his parents and told them where to come.

So, yeah, maybe I'm in love.  Can't imagine I'd be this freaked out otherwise.

-Jordo

Dave/Chris: Gone Fishing

It's been a little while since I've written an update here. We celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago with Chris and Sylvia's friends, rather than any of their families. They both don't have much to do with them, because they don't approve of their "lifestyle". Everyone brought something along, and our contibution was the pecan pie. We all ate until we could eat no more, and the drinks flowed, along with the jokes and the laughter. It was actually one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.

Aside from that, there wasn't much to report. We've settled into a routine of work and home life, and it's really not that interesting. But then, it was my birthday last week. Not Chris' birthday, which is in June, but mine. It's strange to think that my body doesn't actually exist for this birthday, but that's a whole other topic. 

I've mentioned before that we used to go fishing regularly in our old lives. We've been so caught up in these new lives and routine, that we haven't gone fishing, or really done any of the things we used to do since we got here.

When I woke up, Shane was already in the kitchen, frying up bacon and eggs as a birthday treat. "You'll get your present after breakfast", he said, and once we were done, disappeared to his room. A few minutes later, he came out with fishing rods and a tackle box. "Cindy and Craig are working today", he announced "We have the day off and we're going fishing".

We got lucky with the weather, it was in the mid-60s, which is quite good for this time of the year, so we headed off to a local lake, where Shane had rented a boat. It's the off-season for fishing, and it was the middle of the week, so we had the lake to ourselves. Shane had packed lunch and a few beers, and once we'd cast our lines, it really seemed like old times. We didn't talk much, and even though we also didn't catch much, it was a very relaxing day.

We got home in the late afternoon, and Shane told me that we were also going to dinner and a comedy show, so we got changed, went out, and had a fun night.

In the Uber on the way home, I gave him a hug - which was quite awkward, because we were sitting in the back of a car, wearing seatbelts, and I thanked him for what he'd done for my birthday. it really meant a lot. He looked at me, seemed to be in deep thought for a few seconds, and then he said "fuck it", put his hand at the back of my head, pulled me in and started kissing me. I was stunned at first, but then kissed him back, and we made out for the rest of the way home.

We were interrupted by the Uber driver telling us that we'd arrived, and I thought the moment had passed. But once we walked in the door, Shane grabbed me and started kissing me again. we moved to the couch, and he took off his top, revealing a lacy red bra. I took it off and started playing with his tits. He fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, and grabbed my hand and guided it up under his skirt. I could feel the dampness through his panties and nylons. He moaned and started to unbutton my slacks, which immediately made me come to my senses. I pushed him away, and asked him to stop. "I'm sorry" I said, "I can't do this". I was suddenly super aware of the fact that I don't have a cock, and that I was making out with my best buddy. "It's alright", he said, "I want this", and reached for my trousers again. "I can't, I'm sorry", I repeated. I got up, and told him I had to go to bed. "Thanks for organising all this for my birthday. I'll see you in the morning". I him left sitting on the couch, hair tussled and topless.

When I got into bed, I couldn't sleep. I kept replaying what had happened over and over again, and it didn't help that I felt really turned on. After maybe an hour, I started to hear faint female moans, and it took me a moment to realise that it was Shane in the next room. There are no prizes for guessing what he was up to, and it just turned me on even more. Finally, I stuck my hands into my shorts. My pussy wasn't exactly gushing, but it was undeniably wet. I started stroking my clit between my thumb and index finger, trying to imagine it was a penis. I didn't want to insert anything - I'm not ready for that, but eventually, I felt something build, and then an orgasmic release. Shane had gone quiet by now, and I hoped that he didn't hear me. I fell asleep eventually.

This happened a week and a half ago. Nothing has happened since, and we haven't even talked about it. We're both just pretending it didn't happen. But I liked it, and there's a part of me that wants it to happen again, and wants it to go further next time...

Marc/Ed: Family, and other, Ties

I will readily admit that my situation is not the most gripping of those you could be reading about. When I have an opportunity to log on, I am enrapt by posts by Aidan/Emilia and the kids, and I am rooting for Dave/Chris and Shane/Sylvia to find their way through whatever it is they are experiencing, among others.

You would think that being an ole retired fella, I would have time to talk, but this body wasn't exactly made for spending a lot of time on the phone. Arthritic hands don't type so well on a PC either. Mostly I'm just trying to find peace in the situation.

It was Thanksgiving recently, and I had a lot of feelings about that. For the last couple of years I had been one of the "Carey Girls," part of a intensely-intertwined family of siblings, parents, and extended relations. There was always a lot of people around and a lot to do. It always chafed me a bit, being expected to fill the role of middle sister, the eye of the hurricane -- big sis had her own family to worry about, little sis was busy growing. Speaking as Marc Green, who had a frosty relationship with his parents and very few extended relatives, that dynamic was not one I was immediately comfortable with and did not instantly enjoy. Now I find myself nostalgic for it.

Ed's family is small but not quite the same as the one I came from. There's just him and Pam and her kids, and some of Pam's cousins who are not direct relations to Ed. So that's all who gathered for a quiet Thanksgiving where Pam, very reluctantly, made the turkey. My role was to sit in a recliner and watch football, but having recently been part of a family where being off your feet was for later, I found myself meandering into the kitchen, where I was greeted with confused looks and questions of "Do you need a beer or something?" It felt weird not just to not participate, but to be asked not to participate.

John, aka Cayden, was of course there, watching the game with me. Things between us have been frosty since I... ahem... brought him to the Inn. I know that there are commentors here that judge me for that. And you're not wrong, I've regretted it since the moment we arrived before the transformation even occurred, but you didn't see the pain that man was in, or causing to his wife. It was truly a no-win scenario and I thought that by meddling... ah, but I'm wasting precious join health litigating it for you. What's done is done.

John, understandably, does not really like to talk to me when he does not have to, but he would rather watch football than play with his contemporaries. When we had a minute, I asked him how things were. He heaved a very adult sigh.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Oh, uh... these damn Giants, they're blowing it," he said back.

Later around the table we were saying what we were thankful for, and one of the cousins who is about Cayden's age and goes to the same school teased, "I know what Cayden's thankful for!"

"Be quiet..." hissed John, convincingly in character as a bratty kid.

"It starts with Mag, and ends with Nolia!" the little girl continued through her missing teeth.

"Cayden's got a little girlfriend at school," Pam said, clearly amused by the situation.

"I do not! Shut up!" Cayden lashed out, then glanced over to me. My face must have looked quite bemused.

"Watch it, mister," Pam replied sharply, reminding John of his "place."

Later, I found Pam and asked what that "girlfriend" business was about. "Oh, that... apparently there's some girl who's got a little crush on him at school, she's been over to do homework, but he's still in his girls-are-icky phase and doesn't like being teased about it."

"Ah-huh," I said comprehendingly... trying to measure what Pam was saying against the truth that I knew.

After dessert, I invited him to take a walk with me, and sensing that we had matters to discuss he came along. Eventually I broached the topic of this Magnolia character.

He sighed a heavy, adult sigh. "She's a friend. Probably my only friend. Smart for her age. Understands things about the kids today that I don't. Obviously, there's nothing inappropriate about it."

"Right," I nodded. "You know where the line is."

"It's embarrassing," he said, "These are the only people I have to speak to. I can't exactly ask my homeroom teacher Miss Hawkins out for a latte to discuss Trump's cabinet picks."

"No, that would be weird in its own way," I nodded. "I just wanted to check in."

We walked a little longer, until he piped up again. "I'll probably never forgive you for putting me through this, but... the clarity has been nice. The simplicity of a child's life. These kids don't appreciate what they have," he laughed darkly, adultly.

That was nice to hear.

When I got home, I picked up the phone and called someone.

"Heya Ed, how was t-giving?"

"Oh, the usual, family squabbles, kids that don't want to be there, a few stressed women wringing their hangs over a turkey and stuffing," I said. "Yours?"

"Turkey soup for one at a diner," she said.

This is Christine, a woman I met at group therapy. Yes, I'm in therapy -- it was a compromise with Pam after I "gave away" the dog, that I needed to do something to get out and be around people. It's not even a "therapy" group, it's just talking, some games, people getting together on a Wednesday evening. I've been sort of talking around my problems, as Marc, framed through what I think Ed would be going through.

Christine is in her 50's and is mostly on her own. No kids, no parents, just one brother she barely sees. She had a husband who died in an accident ten years ago.  She's had a hard time of it and I guess I kind of gravitated toward her.

I guess, like John, I have to consider what would be an appropriate place to set the relationship between us. Part of me thinks it's improbable that someone her age would look at someone my/Ed's age that way, and part of me has a little bit of hope that there would be something there, even if I would be reluctant to act on it -- which would not be a smart thing to do given my recent track record.

"I would have liked to invite you, but I think Pam would have had a lot of questions," I said.

"Don't worry about it," she laughed. "I've made it this far on my own."

We talked a little bit longer until I got tired and we said goodbye for the night.

And that was Thanksgiving

-Marc/Ed

Aidan/Emilia: Happy... Something

I suppose almost everybody who posts here has a story about how Thanksgiving was strange in different lives, but the truth of the matter is that Thanksgiving is strange for us every year.  Firstly, Kutter's birthday is in the last week of November, and has fallen on the day of the holiday a couple of times.  It's led to some jokes about how, even when it doesn't actually fall during the break, Thanksgiving is "Kutter's Birthday (Observed)".

The other reason is that, six years and one week after Kutter was born, the boys' mother died.  It was an accident of the most incredibly fluky nature, and I hope that readers will understand that I not only don't want to go into the details on this blog because it still hurts but because it's something could be used to uncover the kids' full names, rather than just the nicknames I use here.  This year, Thanksgiving came late enough as to be uncomfortably close to the anniversary.

So that's why our holiday celebrations at home are kind of unconventional; we made a habit of forgoing the traditional turkey dinner to have a birthday party, with a fancy cake and Kutter's favorite foods (which has progressed from chicken nuggets to pizza to last year's Ethiopian), maybe going to the movies while everyone else is gathered for dinner, so that he doesn't feel overshadowed by everything else.  As the kids grow up and their classmates don't really have birthday parties anymore, it's starting to seem unusual, but we don't have much in the way of extended family to complain, and it was probably going to evolve into something else when Kutter went to college.

This year, we had been girding ourselves for scattering to visit the girls' families for Thanksgiving, but that never came to pass - being able to work holidays was a condition when I took my job at the bookstore, Monica's family is on the West Coast and chosen to expect her at Christmas rather than Thanksgiving ever since she started college, and Kutter just doesn't hear much from Katey's folks at all.  I half-joked with them about not getting into any trouble during the long weekend while I was at the bookstore, finally putting in as many hours as they did.  Enjoy the Macy's Parade or something.

Which they did.  And then they came home and started on Thanksgiving Dinner.

Obviously, they weren't going to surprise me with this - it's not like either could fit a turkey into the dorm fridges in their bedrooms and I do most of the cooking, so I know the contents of what's in the kitchen refrigerator better than they do - but I was surprised nevertheless.  After their troubles just making some burgers, I'd kind of figured on them giving up for a bit, but instead Kutter did what Kutter does, looking stuff up and plotting the whole day out, with separate responsibilities for herself and Rusty, a chart that showed what would be using the oven and the stove's two large burners when, and notes on what stores would be open should they need to quickly grab a pie or cranberry sauce or the like should they mess up.

But they didn't mess up.  I got home at 12:15am, still a bit buzzed from one of Rusty's energy drinks at 6:30 or so (they actually do taste all right once you get used to them, though they would probably have dangerous amounts of caffeine even if I were my proper size, and I am not my proper size as Emilia), and saw the table set with three places, the turkey carved, a boat of gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls, cranberry sauce, some green beans, and a bottle of wine.  Rusty was just taking a pumpkin pie out of the oven, setting it on the counter to cool, but gesturing her hands to the table.  "Ta-da!  Thanksgiving dinner!"  Then she pointed at Kutter.  "My girl could manage a restaurant."

Kutter laughed.  "I mean, we're mostly talking about sticking things in the oven and watching them."

Rusty shook her head.  "Do not believe her.  You know Kutter is an anal freak at the best of times, and she had alarms going off all over the apartment to make sure she basted regularly."

"Dude, please, do not call me an anal freak while we're like this.  How many times do I have to ask?"

I tried not to snicker as we sat down at the table.  It's more or less square so it doesn't really have a head, but they sat on opposite sides so I was between them, and both looked in my direction.  I took a breath and let it out.

"Okay, we haven't done this in ten years or so and we didn't really say grace then, so I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to say here.  It feels kind of silly for you to be looking to me for any words of wisdom right now, since you're the ones who have mostly been paying the rent and keeping things going, right down to cooking this meal.  But, then, I guess that's what I'm thankful for - that the two of you could rise to the occasion when I couldn't do everything a father should.  I'm thankful that for all the dangers a young woman can face in the city - which I must admit to having been too dismissive of in the past - we have so far avoided most of them.  I'm thankful that the family living our lives have more or less kept them in good order, and haven't made any noises about keeping them."  The girls laughed, and somehow the pause gave me a moment to get a little more choked up.  "But most of all, I'm thankful that, if this had to happen to any us, it happened in a way that we were able to stay together.  Because, guys, I don't think I could have done this if I had to worry about you two being off with some strangers."

Rusty and Kutter nodded their heads.  "Yeah."  "I don't think I could have done it without you two either."  Rusty tried to give a little half smile and lifted his glass, and we clinked them together before taking a sip and digging into our meal.  Which...  I mean, the girls did a good job, but it was mostly turkey and mashed potatoes and white rolls - the cranberry and gravy was doing a lot of the work.

So that's how my sons and I had our first proper Thanksgiving in a decade at one in the morning in a small Brooklyn apartment, as three young women who aren't genetically related to each other at all, and have been eating leftovers ever since.

-Aidan/Emilia