Daryl/Zee: New Year's Resolution/Confession

Just gonna say it:  I slept with the guy everyone warned me about, on purpose, in spite of or maybe even because of everyone warning me about him. 

I was in a bit of a funk at the end of the year; i didn't really have enough time off accrued to take any sort of Christmas vacation, but work slowed to a crawl because everyone else was making plans around the holidays.  I've made some friends in Boston, but nobody else who was also at loose ends, and I kept finding excuses not to put up a tree or decorate the apartment.  Which is fine until you wake up on the 25th with nothing to do and seriously think about calling your ex to see what he's up to. 

I didn't, but the next week was even slower, so as I sipped my hot chocolate as I wandered around the city's First Night event, I made an actual resolution:  I was not going to be J.T.'s stupid ex who constantly thought about how she gave up her entire life for a man any more.  I was gonna aggressively move on.  I actually said this aloud right before the fireworks started going off; if anyone around me had been paying attention, it would have been so cool. 

Then, a day and a half later, it was First Thursday at The Changeling.  There actually weren't many of us there, and a couple left when the infamous Lenny showed up, and by the end of the night, it was just us. 

It's been a couple months since I've posted, but Lenny stayed at the Inn a few summers ago, got turned into a black woman, but things lined up so he could go back to his real life in just a few weeks.  Since then, he's really had a thing for other Inn people, especially women who used to be men, and hooks up with a lot of them, but it never lasts and often ends badly.  Most of the sizable Boston contingent of transformees at least have a second-hand story.  I was warned.  But, as the saying goes, I wasn't looking for Mr. Right, but Mr. Right Now. 

I was a bit surprised when I actually met him; from the way everyone talked, I was expecting a twenty-something horndog who had either convinced himself that his experience had set the course of his life or learned how to work a very specific new fetish.  Instead, he's forty-ish, balding a little though in decent shape, and using reading glasses.  It's kind of cute, not in an "I'm attracted to him" way, but small and non-threatening.  Even having been warned, it made me underestimate how good his game is.  He maintains eye contact, even though I've taken off my blazer and the turtleneck underneath it's a bit tight, compliments my hair on a way that indicates he knows that it can be a bit of a challenge without underlining it, and waitress for me to bring up sports and other male-coded things without looking relieved afterward. It's better than most people who sit down next to me at a bar manage. 

Long story short, we wind up at his house.  He complains a bit about wearing a condom, but does.  The gossip about his dick isn't exaggerating, and, yeah, he absolutely comes across as someone with first-hand experience in having a clitoris; he finds my g-spot quick! He doesn't fumble around squeezing my breasts like stress balls or putting his dick anywhere i wouldn't want it.  And while it's been a while for me, I do know how to keep him hard so we can go for a long time.

Eventually, we've both climaxed and are lying on top of the sheets, sweaty, naked, and panting in a good way.  He turns and looks at me with a smile.  "That was amazing!  You were meant to be a woman, don't you think?"

I laughed a bit.  "I don't know about that.  You ask me a year ago, and I'm sure I was meant to be one specific man's, uh, life partner."  I tripped a bit there; "girlfriend" seemed insufficient, but i can't say I'd had a lot of specific fantasies of being J.T.'s wife, even by the time I got ready to propose.  "I'm kind of not doing 'meant to be' right now."  The spell broken a bit, I started picking up my clothes and getting dressed.  "Well, aside from being meant to be at work tomorrow, if you know what I mean."

I called a rideshare, got back home, and got three terrible hours of sleep, but there was barely anyone in the office to notice.  Around 11:30am, I got the first text, asking if I wanted to do something more like an actual date the next night.  I was in a call, so I ignored it, and worked through lunch.  By 3pm, there were five messages, not angry or indignant or anything, but it seemed like a lot.  I feel like I would have given a woman I liked a little space, but I was kind of worried about asking anyone if this was a red flag, because the people who wouldn't find a woman in her thirties asking this weird would be all "girl, you slept with Lenny?"

I was bored enough binging the latest season of Lioness (there are like fifteen minutes of characters you actually care about in an hour of that show) to text back, and, yeah, we wound up arranging dinner and a movie the next night.

Based on the movie and restaurant he booked, it was going to be pretty casual, so I showed up in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie.  Nothing torn up or anything - all Christmas-gift-card-new, in fact - but he raised his eyebrows. 

I tried to be playful.  "What, not what you expect from someone 'meant to be a woman'?  You didn't get to experience wearing skirts in the winter!"

He laughed, but it kind of got weird really fast, and at the end of the movie, we went for drinks, and he pointed out a couple of girls who were more dolled up for their Saturday night and said I'd look good in that or whatever, and by the end, I kind of wasn't in the mood.  I said so, he got kind of pissy about it, but ultimately I just went home.

Anyway, I actually had a busy week at work after that - quarterly planning stuff, and really wasn't looking to go out so much as go home at the end of the day, but he's kept texting me.  Even wanted to know if I was doing anything special for Martin Luther King Day, and, geez, white guys, do not ask your Black friends that.  Especially not if you're looking for a date or fun times; I actually had some 23-year-old ask at work if there were remembrances or events scheduled, and could kind of respect someone not knowing and wanting to know what kind of holiday it was for other people.  I said it wasn't exactly a day where I went to church, but I was kind of new in town and didn't know what was planned myself, and should find out for next year.

Which isn't the point so much that it was a sort of clarifying moment for how presumptuous Lenny could be and how actually dating him was going to be all sorts of uncomfortable even if he did have a certain understanding of my life that 98% of the folks I might meet didn't.  So I finally told him that this wasn't going to happen, but I was grateful for that one night.

It hasn't stopped him from texting me yet, so that's going to be a bit of a thing for a while.  But I don't regret the hook-up; I kind of needed a rebound to prove to myself that I am in fact a heterosexual girl who enjoys that rather than a guy who has spent years as various women because the girl I fell for turned out to be something else.  And also that, while I kind of hope I'll find someone I can share my whole real history with, that may not be an entirely unmixed blessing!

-Zee

Aidan/Emilia: "What, and Miss Out?"

Rusty was not exactly pleased when he got "home" Sunday night with a bag now than he left with, asked Kutter what kind of haul she had scored, and saw us gland at the ceiling and each other before a little more prodding got Kutter to blurt out what Katey's father had tried to do.  "So that's why you checked in on me and didn't say why?  I nodded.  "And you!  Why wouldn't you tell me?  The three of us promised to have each other's backs!"

"There was nothing you could do, and i handled it!'

"With booze?"

"Just beer!  Maybe a little more than usual, but i knew Dad would be home soon enough!  I'm fine!"  She rolled her eyes.   "Look, you don't have to worry about me!  You're still my kid brother even if Monica's a couple months older than Katey."  She closed the laptop she been writing one of her videos on and said she was going to work in her room. 

I'd been waking dishes, so I wiped my hands and put an arm around Rusty's shoulder.  "Hey, I'm glad you're concerned about your brother, but we've been together since she got here.  She's holding together.  Now, how about you?  It looks like you had fun."

She shrugged.  "Monica's family is nice.  Kind of on my butt - or her butt - about not having a boyfriend, but i guess she's super-picky or something.  Never really noticed on her socials, but apparently nobody lasts more than a month or so."  She laughed.  "One of the cousins suggested that maybe she was looking for a girlfriend, which freaked her dad out, but, honestly, who has time for all that in their twenties?  Go to the gym, full day of work, and then I'm supposed to shower and change and go out again?  I really don't know how you and Mom found the time!"

I laughed.  "It was less frantic then, but you find the right person, and your priorities rearrange."  I chuckled.  "But wait till we're back home."

Kutter apologized for snapping at us when she came out of her room the next day, but we both said we were fine; she'd been through a lot.  We got texts from Razzie asking if we were around for trivia, since Chandra and Lettie weren't, and said sure. 

It was a bit of a different vibe, but i think we were all feeling good about Manhattan being turned down to about 80% that night.  I did keep a bit of an eye on Kutter, but she wasn't drinking more than usual or getting terms around men or anything, which is probably better than I'd be doing in her place.

We actually squeaked out a win, which had a lot to do with only half the teams showing up, but it felt good.  Of course, it also led to the second-place team buying us a round of drinks and mentioning that the brokerage firm that they worked for was letting them throw a New Year's Eve party the next night with an open bar and a heated balcony with a view of Times Square and everything, and it would be nice if we could come and make it more fun.  Rusty immediately said that sounded amazing while I said I didn't know, lying about having a lot of invitations. 

The kids were quiet on the subject for the subway ride home and up to the apartment, but that was apparently just for appearances' sake, because as soon as we were inside, Rusty was all "i know it's not really your thing, but this is once in a lifetime chance!  New York on New Year's Eve, and did you hear the DJ they've got?  We've gotta go!'

I looked at her incredulously.  "Really?  You want to walk into a pot of entitled, coked-up finance bros less than a week after what happened to Kutter?"

Kutter raised her hands.  "Hey, don't put it on me; I think it sounds awesome."

"Really?  What if--"

Like they'd practiced it, they both reached into their handbags and pulled out spray cans of mace. 

"Since when--"

"Dad, I hand-sell soda to bodegas in some sketchy neighborhoods.  Razzie showed me where to get it after the first time someone groped me at a street fair."

"Ms. Grayson gave this to me when she told me never to be alone in a room with the nepo baby son of the founder."

I shook my head.  "Look, I can't stop you, but it seems like a really bad idea."

Rusty leaned her head back.  "That the thing, though - you can!  That guy only texted one name to be put on the list, and he didn't even ask us ours!"

Kutter nodded.  "Yeah, that thing you said Thursday about me being sexier than you was sweet and there's some truth in it, but it's not like we're talking the most mature guys around here.  And some of the ones who do know what they like do in fact go for the blonde with the big boobs."

"Yeah, and...  Wait, Dad called you sexy?"

She nodded.  "Yeah.  Maybe i needed to hear it, but it was weird."

I didn't break that night, and settled in for a nice long day of watching football when they say on either side of me with their laptops and phones so that they could share the pictures and videos of New Year's festivities from Midway to New Zealand to Australia and on every hour, as well as texts about parties they'd been invited to and how they'd be watching the ball drop on TV,  or how they weren't both invited, the guys they didn't trust who would be there, and how if they did go to Times Square, it was one of the biggest nights of the year for pickpockets, purse snatching, and even girls getting pulled into alleys and--

"Fine!  We'll go to the party!  My good, it's like I actually raised two teenage girls!"

Rusty hugged me.  "And you would have been a great girl dad!"  Then she ran to her room, and i turned to Kutter.  "You guys don't find this disturbing?"

She shrugged.  "I mean, yeah, kind of, but i just figure whatever changed the rest of our bodies also gave us the brain chemistry of straight, cisgender girls, and rolling with that beats tormenting yourself like the kids at school afraid to come out to their parents.  The Inn will change us back and we'll be straight, cis guys again."

I chuckled. "Just like riding a bike, huh?"  She said it only made sense.  "I guess.  Then again, I didn't even know the word cisgender when I was your age.  Barely know it now, so maybe I just don't have the vocabulary for this."

This thought was interrupted by Rusty rubbing out of the room with a green dress that was going to have to stretch to fit her and matching heels.  "What do you think?  I've been a little afraid to wear it out because of how tight it is on my butt, but it's not a night for subtlety."  Kutter have her a thumbs up, and i rolled my eyes. 

"Hey, guys would like dressing up more if it wasn't always made to feel like an obligation that makes you blend in rather than stand out.  Go to any museum and look at portraits of kings, military officers from 150 years ago...  Heck, weren't you alive in the 70s?"

"I was a kid!"

After that, they dragged me into Emilia's room, opened the closet, shoved the practical things I kept up front for easy access to the aside, and then Rusty's eyes went wide as he saw something silvery.  "Come on, don't you want to wear this at least once?"

I really didn't, but that hardly seemed to matter, and soon enough I was in this dress that may have had a neck clasp but was slit to the navel, splaying wide enough that a bra was out of the question and Rusty had to let me borrow some double sided tape lest my nipples jiggle free.  There were matching heels and nail polish - although Kutter looked at the state of my toenails, got a file out of the bathroom, and said they were only going to do this for me once - so I got those painted.  They had me wear the dress around the apartment and walk around to make sure I hadn't forgotten how to balance or to cross my legs in the two months since getting a job where wearing flats was not just okay, but encouraged.  After they got dress themselves, they did my makeup and put glitter in my hair.

Looking in the mirror, it wasn't just that I looked like a different person, even considering that I've gotten used to Emilia's face over the last four months or so, but I kind of felt like I was seeing these three girls the way they must have come across as a group in college:  Emilia, tall, blonde, and busty, flaunting what she's got; Monica trim, cool, and confident; Katey less glammed-up  but the softer face making her look kind of relaxed as the goofy wingman.  They/we look right as a group, even if my and the kids don't entirely map to the images.

Downtown was already kind of a mess by the time we got there around 8:30 or so - and Kutter had us use a rideshare, even though they were alarmingly expensive on NYE, but it was too cold for the amount of leg Rusty and I were showing (Kutter wore boots) and we didn't want to get mussed up on the subway  Rusty had apparently texted Razzie when I was busy being fussed with, so she was waiting for us.

The guy at the front desk of this office building looked slightly amused to be acting as a bouncer, but not exactly irritated as he was probably getting some very generous overtime.  He found Emilia's name on the list, shrugged when I said these were my friends, and pointed us to the right elevator.

We didn't immediately see the guys from trivia, but noted the weird vibe immediately: lots of guys in suits, lots of girls dressed like me, few of whom gave the impression of working in a financial firm.  I mean, yeah, appearances can be deceiving, but I know holiday-party flirting with co-workers, and this was definitely "play my cards right and I could be set for life" flirting.

At first, I spent most of my time keeping an eye on Kutter, but she didn't spend a lot of time at the bar like I feared; she was there to dance and way more comfortable doing it than I was in those shoes.  I did eventually catch up with the guy who invited us, and we danced a bit, but I was pretty terrible.  Imagine an SNL skit where a girl doesn't really know what her hips are doing and is torn between thrusting her boobs out because they're what guys are looking at and being terrified that the tape will give and that was me.  I convinced him that I was a complete nerd, and that did not seem to be what he was looking for, no matter how the girl looked.  He didn't seem to mind much when I excused myself to use the ladies' room, although I was amused to come out and see him dancing with Rusty.

I kind of figured my work there was done and found a stool at a portable bar that had been erected in a corner and asked for a bourbon.  They had the good stuff, and some senior manager noticed my good taste.

We talked for a while, and it was actually kind of nice, at first.  I don't get a chance to talk to men my real age that often, not for more than a few minutes at a time, and it was easy to fall into the right rhythms, and I didn't really think, hey, shouldn't he find it weird that this 23-year-old girl is connecting so easily with a guy twice her age? until I was another drink in and really wary about getting off the stool and walking around.  Of course, he wouldn't be - middle-aged white men making the sort of money he does kind of assume that they're the default and anyone different is strange (yeah, I'm more acutely aware of this than I used to be), and most of zoomer girls he meets have probably taken step to make themselves more appealing and ingratiating.  I was kind of looking to either side of him when I could, seeing if I could catch the kids' eyes, but they were on the other side of the patio beyond a lot of people.  I also became kind of aware that he had placed himself such that it was hard to step down and move around him, all the more so when he put his hand on my back when the countdown started and everybody had moved toward the edge of the balcony to watch the ball.

They'd gotten down to six when I heard a familiar voice say "There you are, sexy - you're about to miss it!" and when I looked up Razzie was pulling me up and pulling me across the room.  At around three, she quickly said we had to sell it right before yelling "Happy New Year!" and kissing me full on the lips.

I must have looked shocked when we disengaged, while she looked sheepish.  "I'm sorry!  This was really uncool, but he's our friend's boss, and he likes to pressure his people to give him girls' numbers, but thinks gay people are kind of gross.  Monica would have come to grab you herself, but, well, I kind of wanted to.  Kind of have for a while, but it doesn't look like you're into it."

I wasn't sure whether to protest or not - she was a good kisser and the piercing in her lip didn't feel nearly as weird as I would have thought, but, no, I really wasn't into it even though I felt like I should be.  She laughed at me still looking dumbfounded.  "Hey, it's okay, I'm not usually into Barbie dolls myself.  You just have a really unique vibe."  She laughed.  "Man, when I met you guys, I thought you were some sort of lesbian polycule, but that ain't it.  You're just really good friends, which is really cool."  We'd reached the elevators, so talking got awkward, and we were back down at the street before we knew it.  "So, uh, I should probably go.  See you at trivia!"  And with that, she was off to the nearest subway station.

Surprisingly, Rusty and Kutter were among the next group the elevator disgorged, Rusty with a smirk on her face.  "Well, that was hot!"

I groaned.  "You saw it?"

Kutter held up her phone.  "I am putting this on a memory card as soon as we get back to the apartment so I'll have it forever, even after I no longer have access to Katey's cloud storage."

"She was just trying to convince that guy I wouldn't be interested!"

Kutter put her phone away.  "Uh, would you be?"

I shook my head.  "I don't think so.  Heck, I don't think I'd do much more than, you know, hang out at the bar talking just to talk to someone if I met him as myself.  Although..."  The kids started to grin a little sarcastically, Rusty more so than Kutter.  "I mean, look, I'm not going to lie to you, when he touched my back, there was a bit of excitement about what could happen next along with the feeling that this could get out of my control, and there really wasn't with Razzie.  Maybe what you said about having these bodies' orientations and the like is true."  They seemed to consider that as we stood against the building.  Finally, I crossed my arms over all the sideboob that was getting hit by the wind.  "Whatever.  Thanks to this dress you guys insisted on, I'm freezing my tits off, so let's get home."

They agreed, and we figured we were okay with the subway this time, even if it was crowded as heck.  By the time we got to the apartment, the three or four drinks finally caught up to me, and I basically dropped on my bed in just my panties, which I never do, figuring there would be some sort of longer talk the next day, but they were gone to their jobs by the time I woke up, and then I was off to mine before they left.

Maybe there's not much to talk about - we've got the bodies of young women with standard-issue hormones, there were guys around, but what are we going to do, considering we're halfway through our time like this?  As much as there was some knee-jerk physical reaction for me, it still felt weird, and I can't imagine it not feeling weird by the time we go home.

-Aidan/Emilia