Marc/Dustin: There's bizarre, and then there's...

I was completely gobsmacked to find out that John had not only returned to the Inn, and brought his wife, but also had landed the room next to me, which had resulted in his and my lives being intertwined again.

I didn't really know what to say or do in that moment, so I excused myself, under the premise of giving them some space to adjust to their situation. When I returned to my room, there was already a message on my phone from John: "Thanks for keeping cool. We'll talk."

I laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I was annoyed at myself for implicitly endorsing John's lie, but what was I supposed to do, tell Mary "Oh, I already know your husband, we used to sleep together, and now it will be so much easier and more convenient for us to do so if we so desire. Also I kind of kidnapped him for the last year." I felt some frustration toward John, but a lot more toward myself. My own bad decisions are coming home to roost, with compound interest.

After a while, there was a knock at the door. John/Dakota entered, dressed in a pink tank top and white linen shorts -- girly but functional, with a lot of bare skin, his hair in a loose ponytail. Behind, looming over him, was the much-taller Mary/Cassandra, dressed in a black spaghetti strap top bodysuit with high-waisted high-cut shorts overtop, emphasizing her pinup girl physique.

"So, Mary thought," John said, still behaving like we were unacquainted, "We should get to know each other better. How does brunch sound?"

I wanted to say I wasn't really hungry, but I was in the body of a 22-year-old athlete -- I was starved.

Reluctantly, I went along. I couldn't even tell you what was said, because the entire time I was fixated on how messed up it all was. John as Dakota was aloof, unable to meet my eyeline. Mary was like a deer learning to walk. What I know of her, she's a buttoned-down sort of lady. She was definitely cognizant of the way people were looking at her, her eyes constantly searching the room.

"I feel like I'm wearing a Halloween costume I can't take off," she said at one point, inflected with both annoyance and awe at the situation. "Good gracious, what kind of person does this to their skin?" she said, displaying Cassandra's intricate tattoo sleeves. "Does she not know one day she's going to be an old woman?"

The day passed and John and I weren't getting any opportunities to talk -- frustrating but understandable, since I can't see how Mary would let her husband wander off in this body, or how John would explain wanting to. It was midnight when I got the notification.

"You up?"

"Yeah," I texted back, "We should talk in person if you can get away."

"Meet me out front," John wrote.

A few minutes later, there we were. I guess I shouldn't have felt so weird towering over him -- the height difference was less extreme than when he had been Cayden, but at the same time, seeing John as a pretty blonde was trippy. I sat on the front step with my eyes forward, unable to look at this girl -- I didn't want how attractive she was looking to color my perception that it was John inside, and he had a lot to answer for.

"So," he began to say in a low voice, "You've got to believe this was not planned."

"How could I possibly?" I snapped back. "You and me, here, together? With Mary? You must have hacked my emails."

"Hack your emails?" he scoffed, "I can't even get my Apple watch to work. It's purely coincidence."

He produced his phone and showed me an exchange between him and Mary from a few weeks earlier. The sender said "That place in Maine called back -- there's openings in July and September."

"I've got quarterly board meeting in September, so July it is. I know it's quick but I'm very excited."

"Me too."

John explained that Mary was on the board of a nonprofit that would be meeting in September, so they couldn't pick that vacancy.

"It's still too insane to think this is a coincidence," I grumbled. "I feel like somebody has been manipulating my whole life for years."

"Well if they have, it's not me," John sneered, "I wouldn't have known how to make this happen, and it's the last thing I would have wanted. I was aiming to get further away from you."

"So what did you want?"

He heaved a big sigh and said, "Same thing you want. A second chance. There was no saving Mary's and my relationship as it was. But she's a good person and doesn't deserve to be hurt. As far as she knows, we've just been estranged for a while and I was going to put a serious effort into reconciling. But I couldn't do it as... you know, me. I couldn't look at her and see a partner or a lover anymore. I was hoping that we could become two people who could love each other. Or on the flipside, two people who could just be friends. Let her down easy."

"You got your wish," I growled.

"Cut me some slack," he said, "I didn't do anything worse than what you did, and I had noble intentions. This inn is going to do its magic thing no matter what, you've said so yourself. Why not get the benefit?"

It always feels like I'm in a first-year Ethics class with John -- which is, paradoxically, why I wanted to sleep with him as Ryan.

"So if Mary had become Dustin, you would have tried to make it work?" I asked.

"I should've been so lucky," he snorted -- cutely, I might as well say. I could feel his eyes scan me, but I ignored it.

He put his hand on my knee, but I moved it off. I didn't want to signify to John that that door was in any way, open, no matter what we may look like.

"It may sound counterintuitive," John said, "But this was the only way Mary and I could have an honest relationship. With my having been to the Inn and her not, there was an imbalance of experience. Now at least, we can make an informed choice how we want to live the rest of your lives."

"Sounds like you've really thought it over," I grunted, "Like you've got yourself convinced."

"You of all people should know what an intoxicating experience it is to know that the inn exists and does what it does."

"That doesn't make it a good thing," I sighed.

There was no winning the argument, and no point to it -- what was done was done. By now we'd pretty much locked into the fabrication that we were strangers and he'd never been to the Inn. If I blow his cover now it's going to bring up a lot of questions I'd rather not answer either, and make me look like I had something to do with it. I'm an accessory after the fact.

Not much of a fresh start.

"Go be with your wife," I said, exasperated. "Do whatever you can to make this experience palatable for her. I guess I'll go delete my posts." I felt kind of sad that Marc Green was going to disappear from this blog forever, but as therapeutic as it is to spill your guts to strangers it's not always practical or fair to others.

"Nah, leave 'em up," John said. "Write whatever you want. She's not a reader, she only uses her phone for gardening videos."

I did offer "Dakota" a friendly side-hug as we parted ways. I'm satisfied -- for the time being -- that we're on the same page and fundamentally want the same things. I watched him go back in... and annoyingly, he turned back to see me watching, which caused some embarrassment and provoked in him a smirk. I waved him off. The last thing I want is to come any further between these two... let them sort out whatever it is their relationship is going to look like without me. I'll find... literally anything else to do.

-Marc/Dustin

Marc/Dustin: The catch is...

The change happened last night not long after I arrived and posted. I was about three episodes into Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Season 2 (will those girls ever get paid what they deserve?) I felt a tingling, irritating sensation, which I've come to know very well, but... nothing was happening.

Of course that's not true. Something was happening. My skin tone was changing. My muscle tone was changing. My hair was changing. A million little features on your body gradually fade from one to another -- it's just that there was no dramatic increase in breast size or hair or... any of that stuff. Short-cropped dark hair becomes slightly longer blond. My clothes "shrank" ever so slightly. My legs began to bristle with body hair.

I stood up and noted, woozily, that I had definitely gained height. I was over 6', probably the tallest I've ever been, after being the 5'8 Ryan. It was also pretty clear I was going from a medium jockeys to a large, so I pushed my shorts down and saw... something that was pretty good, if I'm being honest.

To the bathroom I went to see the face of a chisel-jawed, blue-eyed, All-American boy. Not to be shallow, but this definitely felt like a win. I went from yoga twink to high school quarterback (actually,  college lacrosse midfielder, I've since found out.) I flexed for myself and noted the definition, wondering if I was still feeling echoes of Ryan's sexuality or if, you know, this was just a reasonably handsome guy that anyone would appreciate being.

In the closet were two suitcases. I had glanced at them, but given one was navy blue and the other sparkly-pink, I didn't really want to examine either until I found out who I was becoming. This was my introduction to Dustin Howe, a 22-year-old recent grad from (redacted) college, living in (redacted New England town). I grinned at my luck -- twenty-two years old, no particular occupation, living away from home. This was, I think, what everyone secretly hopes for when they go to the Inn. Those are things I would hope for before even considering gender or race.

The pink suitcase, his note told me, belonged to his girlfriend Dakota. In pictures and videos, they seemed like an almost too-perfect couple: she stood about a head and a half shorter than him, petite, sporty, fashionable, perky, equally blonde, energetic and not shy about showing off her tight young body in bikinis. They were like dolls designed to go together. They wound up as, in their words, an "old millennial couple," (a phrasing I took somewhat personally) but had been spared a gender swap. I reasoned the new Dakota was in an adjoining room, but as it was very late at night, I figured I would wait for them to come find me. 

It was around daybreak that I heard a knock at the door. I guess my body was expecting a summons, or just coursing with adrenaline, so I was sleeping lightly and sprang to my feet, almost forgetting to put on some shorts before my long stride took me to the knob. I opened the door expecting to find "Dakota," but instead saw someone... different. 

She was tall, nearly eye-to-eye with me, with jet black hair, pale skin, and tattoos that I could see covering her arm, neck and chest, at least from the portion visible under the silk robe she was wearing, which clung to her pin-up girl curves. Her earlobes were massively stretched out, as if they were supposed to have numerous piercings that, I would guess, simply disappeared somewhere between transformations.

She looked at me with her doelike brown eyes -- an expression that read to me as suppressed fear and confusion -- and said, "Pardon me, I'm looking for someone called... 'Dustin'?"

I nodded, "I... guess that would be me." I didn't want to seem like too much of a pro at this, but I also wanted to establish that we were all safe and sound.

"I, erm," she stammered, her vocal inflection that of a rather older woman, and shyly pressed a lock of hair behind her ear, "I was told there would be a suitcase in your room belonging to a Dakota Culbert."

"Oh, um, yeah, yeah," I stammered. "It's here. Sorry, who are you, then?" I was curious how this third person had been briefed on Dakota and Dustin.

She paused. "I... I don't know if I should tell you my real name, or..."

"Um, let's... let's not get into real names just yet," I said, trying to take things one at a time. "I was told to expect a Dakota, but I don't know anything about..."

"Well, apparently I'm Cassandra," she said, primly.

"Who's Cassandra?" I asked. I had read the note -- brief as it was -- numerous times already, and seen no mention of such a person.

"Well, as I've been informed, Cassandra, Dustin and Dakota live together. They're best friends, housemates, something like that. It's all in the letter I found with her luggage."

"My letter doesn't mention a Cassandra," I said. I guess Dustin had been a little neglectful and self-centered when writing his piece.

"Well, I guess we'd all better have a talk," 'Cassandra' said with a frustrated sigh and beckoned me over. "Would you like to..." she gestured at my bare chest and undershorts, which were not doing a good job of suppressing "Little Dustin", before correcting herself and blushing, "Sorry."

"It's okay," I felt myself blushing too. I asked her to wait a minute, closed the door, and threw on some loose-fitting sweats I had found, with a Patriots jersey on top.

We wheeled the pink suitcase over to the room next door. 'Cassandra' knocked and opened, calling in, "Are you decent? It's me."

"I'm good," croaked the girl on the bed, whom I saw was wrapped in blankets, presumably naked beneath. "Ugh, thank God you found it. At least I'll have something to wear."

"I would have lent you something," 'Cassandra' said.

"We don't need to add another layer of perversity to this, Mare," 'Dakota' sniped back, the way an old married couple banters. I surmised then that "Dakota" was the husband of "Cassandra," which I was already sensing would make things complicated. She unzipped the hard suitcase and began to comb through it, giving out a very middle-aged "oy-yoy-yoy" at her findings. "How about that," she said obscurely. Not exactly the raving panicked reaction I would expect.

"Well, I guess you'll have questions..." I said slowly, suddenly being thrown off of any potential speech I might have been prepared to make as I began to get a very odd feeling, "It's your first time here?"

"That's right," 'Cassandra' said. I noticed the tension in her posture -- only natural -- with her arms folded tightly under her bosom. "Do you... know about this?"

"A fair bit," I admitted, "I hope you don't mind. This is my... wow, fourth time around. It gets easier, without ever actually getting, you know, easy," I said through an awkward laugh. They were politely unamused.

"My name is, well," I said, trying to compose myself, "Originally it was Marc Green. I was born in 1987 so I guess I'm ah, 38 now, but obviously... er, not. I've been through a few different renditions of this. A bit older than I currently look, I'm just saying."

Dakota looked up from the suitcase. Without hesitation, s/he said, "Well, it's nice to meet you, Marc. I'm John *******, and this is my wife, Mary."

I froze, and I just glared at him/her.

John.

It was impossible, and I think my head absolutely refused to believe it was true -- maybe it was the magic of the inn or maybe it's because it's the most insane thing I could have imagined (short of what happened to poor Jade.) I thought for a second that the names were just a coincidence, because surely this wasn't...

John and freaking Mary.

And he was pretending like he had no clue who I really was, and he'd never been here before. And doing it so effortlessly, too, looking at me with those big crystal blue eyes like he had never seen me. I guess it was easy to pretend since this was a new face.

John. Was here. At the inn.

And he brought his wife.

-Marc

Marc/Ryan: Flashbacks

Summer 2020

Marc Green, a man in his mid-thirties who worries about the slight expansion of his waistline and receding of his hairline, has quit his job as a corporate lawyer, over the protests of his wife Laura. He was spending 80 hours per week going over contracts for a heartless conglomerate and felt the soul being sucked out of him. The timing couldn't have been worse given Laura's ambition to start a business of her own, and the lawyer job provided much-needed stability. Then the pandemic hit and all bets were off, and suddenly every little disagreement between these two becomes magnified in the hothouse of social distancing.

We're going out to see some friends for the first time since the lockdown, and there's a disagreement over what dress she should wear. The truth is I am ambivalent -- women's clothes? What do I know about that? -- but when pressed, I make a ruling. She disagrees, and in fact is annoyed that I describe her choice as "a little cleavage-y," because it insinuates something prudish and patriarchal on my part. At a certain point, I think we're just picking fights over any little thing.

On this occasion, we limp through the evening, and even start to rebuild our dynamic and rediscover why we got together in the first place. After a few drinks, all is forgiven, and at the end of the night, after we've parted ways with our friends, we're making out in the car like a couple of teenagers. Sex becomes our only form of expression, which probably helps keep our relationship afloat through the final two very fraught years of our ten year tenure, a stretch marked by visits to three different couples counselors, one of whom, in 2022, will recommend a getaway. We're on a budget though, so we can't go further than... Maine.

Fall 2023

Chantelle Carey, a pretty, curvy-hipped and quite bosomy green-eyed brunette with the most beautiful, kissable round lips you've ever seen (not that many people kissed them) arrives home from work, goes straight to her room, and removes her pencil skirt and blouse. She pulls down the elastic band of her panties and notes the red mark where it has dug into her skin. "Damnit," she hisses, now examining her soft, fleshy body in the mirror. Gained an inch too many. She sits on her bed, half-naked, running her hands through her thick hair in stress.

It isn't that she's worried about staying thin. She's not thin, and she likes her round figure as it is, even when her thighs rub together as she walks. She's certainly made peace with it. She's come to identify with it. But the idea of it getting bigger, or changing in any way, is troubling to her. After all, she owns hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of clothes that are meant to fit this body. The last thing she wants to do is gain weight (or lose it!) and have to build an entirely new wardrobe. She wants things to stay exactly as they have been since she came into this form in the summer of 2022. Helplessness sets in. Not for the first time, she's trapped in a life she didn't ask for and doesn't know what to do next.

That night, I gathered my -- er, Chantelle's -- younger sister Emma, and niece Keisha, who was staying with me for reasons too personal and complicated to explain, and we went over every item in my wardrobe to figure out what still fit. Only a few items had to go to Goodwill, which was a relief.

By now, Laura was well out of my life, having embraced being Damon wholeheartedly, as though she always was him. I developed a conspiracy theory of sorts to try to explain how we wound up in these lives specifically, which I still think is 90% accurate, even if I couldn't quite finish connecting the dots between Laura and Damon. Ultimately, I was given a fairly sizeable cash "incentive" to basically ensure I will go away and never bother "Damon" again and never allow his wife to find out about his affair with Chantelle. The money remains in a secret account I will be able to draw on no matter what life I am living, as long as I have my faculties. The truth is I didn't have any leverage or intent to do damage, nor did I ask for the money, but we both feel a lot better when I sign the paperwork. It's over, our de facto divorce settlement.

A few months later, Keisha is going back to her mother, and Chantelle and I finally come to terms on a plan for her to return to her own body, much later than we had initially hoped. I am prepared to move forward as someone else, having ceded the life of Marc Green to someone else.

Summer 2024

At a gay club in Brooklyn, a handsome young man named Ryan Berardi -- a personal assistant by profession although he's between jobs -- spots the only guy who seems to look more out of place than him. Ryan's only there because "his friends" wouldn't take no for an answer, and, truth be told, he's been craving human interaction for so long he's willing to go anywhere he seems wanted. But he's not gay -- is he? After all, he is aware that he was a "straight woman" not that long ago, who sometimes harbored hopes for a physical reconciliation with "Damon," and who indulged in flirtation with males from time to time. He's a little ashamed to be "told" he is now a gay man, though, and thinks he must somehow find a way around it. You're only gay when you do something gay -- right? Sexually, he was in limbo... until meeting "John."

He couldn't even understand the appeal on a conscious level. John was older, with gray temples, crow's feet, and lines around his mouth, and aloof. But something about his presence was appealing. Something about his words sparked, maybe just because it was the most intelligent conversation Ryan had had in longer than he could remember, even as they shouted over the noise of the club. And maybe it was because John so clearly wanted him, and he wanted to be wanted, something he hadn't felt in... lifetimes.

At which point they started "doing something gay" with each other.

Lying in bed in the arms of a rough, hairy man, "Ryan" can almost see... not a future, but at least a very enjoyable year ahead. That wasn't so bad, in fact it really hit the spot. But an extremely quick social media search reveals John isn't who he says he is. 

Over the last year, I've chalked it up to everything from hormones and libido, to my own chronic loneliness dating back to my original life, to a rationalization that if it weren't me it would be someone else. I stayed in that affair for my own selfish reasons and for him. Something was clearly aching him inside and I didn't think he would find what he was looking for in his life as it was, so... well, you know the rest. It was a complicated entanglement to say the least, even before we went to the Inn. I feel like I recognized something of myself in him and thought I should do for him what I would have wanted someone to do for me -- get me out of a situation that is simply not tenable. I would come to regret that.

Winter 2025

Around 8 PM on a Saturday night, Ed Levesque is having a cup of decaf coffee at a diner with a woman nearly nearly young enough to be his daughter, and nearly old enough to have given birth to Marc Green. She's relating the customer service experience she recently got from her cell phone provider, and the "old man" is riffing along, perhaps surprising her with his up-to-date knowledge. They're making each other laugh far more than one would have expected.  

As much as I wished I could stop my affair with John, I wished I could start one with Christine. 

As with him, it was a very unlikely attraction -- she looked every bit her age and didn't exactly have a lot of effort to devote to disguising it, but in the body of Ed Levesque, I was beyond caring. Like John, she was someone I enjoyed spending time with for her own sake, someone with whom I had a lot of common ground. Unlike John, she didn't seem to have a dark side or be damaging anyone with her presence, other than Ed's daughter, who, not knowing the source of the money I kept handing out, had a lot of problems with me suddenly getting so friendly with a woman young enough to be... well, younger.

Physically, emotionally, practically, the elements just never came together. I think I'll always feel a little sad about that, but if I haven't learned how to move on from these things by now, it would be surprising. 

A few weeks later, John, in the form of "Cayden" will absolve me of the guilt I feel for bringing him to the Inn, telling me the experience has in some way been good for him. I'm still not entirely sure I've forgiven myself, but what's done is done and, more of a relief, has been largely rectified. He's where he's supposed to be, and I'm on the path I'm on, wherever it may lead.

It's hard to believe I've been all these people in my life, and now I'm on my way to becoming another. I wrote all of the above in transit to Old Orchard Beach but didn't hit publish until I got here. A family issue caused me to delay my arrival and now we're at the end of what is supposed to be my two weeks, and I hope it's clear sailing from here.

I know there are a lot of possible bad outcomes, but unlike other people I have to be here. I have to give Ryan back what's his. I'm hoping for that elusive fresh start, for the day I don't feel haunted by all the people I've been, but in the end, if something terrible happens, it should happen to me, a person ho knows what they're getting into, rather than some unsuspecting innocent. 

I just have to keep moving, accumulating all these memories until I just get full up and find a place to stop.

-Marc/Ryan/Everyone

Dave/Jade: Off to Europe

It’s been a pretty hectic time since we left the Inn, so I haven’t managed to send any updates until now.

After changing into Jade, I went looking for my travel companion in the morning and found her in the next room with a somewhat bewildered look. I explained what had happened, and she took it all in, surprisingly with very few questions — I guess she was just stunned.

We took stock of where we were supposed to be and what we were doing next, and saw that we had a few days before our flight out of JFK. Not wanting to do much travelling before then, we decided to head straight to New York and booked a bus that afternoon.

Getting dressed for the first time was...an experience. I pulled on yoga pants and a loose T-shirt. I found a sports bra, which wasn’t too hard to figure out after some trial and error. I’d originally planned to go without, but the movement was disconcerting, and the bra definitely helped with that. Then came the panties. They looked impossibly small and uncomfortable, but to my surprise, they weren’t bad at all — in fact, far more comfortable than the prosthetic-packed briefs I used to wear when I was Chris.

Tash, who used to be an 18 year old girl from Philadelphia called Sophie, also wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of backpacking through Europe. But staying illegally in the States would risk deportation, which would almost certainly ruin our chances of returning to the Inn next year. So, we decided to just go along with the plan and make the best of it.

I went through Jade’s messages and found out her boyfriend was planning to meet us in London in September. Yeah, her boyfriend. That’ll be fun to navigate.

New York was… New York. Loud, crowded, expensive. We did the usual sightseeing: Empire State, Ground Zero, Central Park, some obligatory Statue of Liberty photos (from a long way away — tickets were long sold out). We tried to play the tourist game right, posting pictures on Instagram, keeping up the illusion.

We stayed in an 8-bed all-female dorm. Being surrounded by young women while still feeling like a man in his 40s on the inside — it made me hyper-aware of myself, my body, how I moved, how I looked. I kept my head down while we were there.

We got invited out by some Dutch girls from our dorm. That night, I drank more than I expected and had more fun than I thought I could. They gave us their contacts and said we should look them up in Holland. We might just do that.

On our second morning, Tash pulled me aside on Broadway and said, "Umm, there’s blood on your shorts." I immediately panicked and rushed into the nearest hotel to find a bathroom. I mustn’t have inserted the tampon properly – I’m new at this. The thin pad I’d put in my panties as a backup hadn’t caught everything, so I cleaned up as best I could. I obviously didn’t want to keep walking around with a blood stain on my shorts, but the only clean clothes I had back at the hostel, that were suitable for the weather, were dresses and skirts. Tash tried to convince me to wear one, but I’m not ready for that yet. We found a clothing store, and I bought black shorts, on which you can’t see stains as easily as the beige shorts I originally had on.

Eventually, we flew to Dublin. I felt nervous going through passport control, knowing I wasn’t the person in the passport photo, but no one blinked. Jade has family in Galway, and we were meant to stay with them. We caught a bus across the country. I expected the trip to last a lot longer than the 2 and a half hours that it actually took. Ireland is a lot smaller than you think! Jade’s uncle picked us up and drove us to their home. There’s one guest room with a double bed. Sharing with Tash was awkward — neither of us were thrilled — but we didn’t have a good excuse not to.

We both need money, so we started job-hunting almost immediately. Luckily, Galway’s full of pubs, and the tourist season is kicking off, so we found work quickly. Having run a café last year as Chris, the environment was fairly familiar. I’m getting hit on more than I know how to handle — which is both flattering and strange. I still haven’t figured out how to respond, but Tash has been more helpful than she knows.

Ireland is a nice country though, and the people are really friendly. Maybe this will be OK after all.

 

Tom/Kiara: A Girl's Life

So here's where things stand:

I'm in the body of a seventeen-year-old girl.

I have a baby daughter to look after, sore breasts, bags under my eyes and Girl!B.O.

I'm stuck in some one-horse North Carolina town.

All this hair on my head is bottling in the heat something fierce.

I possess knowledge that could upend an entire industry, but I have to be very careful what I do with it, because those involved have proven they're willing to go to extreme lengths to protect themselves. We already know what happened when I started getting close, next time could be anything from a major legal battle to murder, and that's all assuming I can convince anyone to publish the story if and when it's written.

And the original owner of this body/name/life is nowhere to be found, not that we'll be able to switch back until next year at the earliest.

It's been hard for me to find time to post here, for reasons that should be obvious. I'm usually pretty preoccupied, and there are too many people around anyway. If I spend too much time on the family laptop it raises questions. Scrolling through the phone is more Kiara's speed -- and it's not like it's impossible to write a blog from there, but it's very hard to get the kind of focus I need to write. This post has come together in bits and pieces.

In my last post, a week and a half ago but seemingly a lifetime, I was introduced to Kiara's mom, Jen, and her daughter Sienna, as well as their dogs Casper and Carly. If that was all who was in the house, it would be plenty, but the place is more full than that. Kiara is the oldest of 4, with 15-year-old Cerie, 10-year-old brother Maddox, and 8-year-old Aura. I haven't exactly been able to have sit-down interviews with all of them, but I have gathered that Kiara and Cerie are full siblings and Maddox and Aura were from a different relationship. I'm not judging, that's just the way it goes for some people. The kids seem nice, but, you know, I never did have much of a rapport with youngsters. They're being raised, to varying degrees, by phones and tablets.

Also living under this roof is Jen's mom Kelly, Kiara's grandmother who is a little bit younger than my own mother, and her mother Enid, who is bedridden in the back room. That's five generations under the roof of one cramped, hot, exurban house.

When Kiara disappeared, I don't even think Jen and Kelly were shocked or confused or maybe even that mad. They seemed to have a lot of sympathy for why a girl of 17 would want to pick up and run away from her one big responsibility in life. That doesn't mean they were happy about it, only that when I returned, it was sort of unspoken that Kiara had gotten it out of her system and was ready to take up motherhood again. If only. In the meantime they were absolutely prepared to fill in for me and look after the kid. I felt a little bad taking my sweet time to come back, but all things considered, who could blame me?

I don't know whether Kiara left of her own accord, was tricked, targeted, bargained, or what. I don't know if she's trying to come back or if it makes a difference if she were. But, I have it on good authority she's in an adult body, likely female, so it's not like she's fully without means.

Not that any of it matters. All of that has taken a backseat to the unending cycle of feeding, burping, pooping, changing and napping, with crying sprinkled throughout (mostly her, sometimes me.) Some days, when the heat isn't too oppressive, I load her up and wheel her down to the coffee shop where I order a decaf and try to do some research, until she starts crying and I have to turn my focus to her. Jen and Kelly are available to assist, but I'd just as soon not rely on them after the major solid they did their daughter during my absence, and plus, asking for them to step in usually invites questions about what, exactly, I'm doing that will be so important.

It's clear that I can't simply barrel ahead with my agenda. There are too many distractions in life, I need to figure out a rhythm that works.

We've also been talking about what, exactly, I'm going to do about school in the fall, and let me tell you, walking around a high school in the body of a teen mom does not excite me.

The whole lot of us, plus Jen's boyfriend Travis, went to a big cookout for the Fourth. I was not exactly enthused to be there and kept to myself. Actually, I ended up chatting with a bunch of other moms -- most of whom were age-appropriate -- which proved enlightening. More, it was reassuring to find out that even people who wanted this have struggles and problems with their kid. Made me feel a little less... drowning and helpless. Food was good, too. There are worse fates to suffer than getting fed some Carolina BBQ now and again.

Last but not least, I had Kiara's period for her the week after my last post. It wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be -- the worst parts, the cramping and aches, came on sneakily beforehand so that I didn't exactly realize what was going on, and when I finally got my "visitor" it was more like "Oh, I see." I would not recommend.

-Tom