Sometimes I look at my life and wonder how I get myself into these situations. Mostly, I figure, it's be being an idiot. And a rather emotionally susceptible one at that, as much as I try to keep people at a remove, for my own safety and theirs.
It's been over a month since "Dakota" and I started working on openly portraying a couple. What some of you readers may glean, but others may not, is that as much as it goes with the territory, it's actually not always easy to play-act like that. In my previous lives, I was somewhat lucky -- As Chantelle, I only had to pretend that Damian and I were not involved, which became easier once I realized I had lost my wife to her new life. As Ryan, I didn't have to pretend anything, and as Ed I only had to pretend to be a crotchety old father figure to Pamela. It's easy to fill a role for somebody who doesn't know you're lying, because you can draw on whatever feelings you really are having. But it's really hard to perform and be a co-conspirator.
The truth about the Inn is that while having your body changed (and changed again and again) can unlock parts of you you may not have known, by and large people can't pretend to be something they're not for very long. The Inn's curse, which insulates us from suspicion, does more to protect our secret than any ability to portray the person we appear to be. All of that is to say John makes for a very weird Gen Z: serious and contemplative and icy, a far cry from what I believe to be the bubbly and available blonde Dakota. In terms of John failing to "pass," witness his conversations with housemates like PJ and Ify about the prospects of Mamdani's campaign for Mayor of New York. ("Sure I'd vote for him, but does he really appeal to that many people? And if he wins, don't you think he'll encounter problems governing if he doesn't at least play ball a little?" Doesn't sound like anything a real 23-year-old would say.)
John and Mary have both noted how stilted it sounds when I call "Dakota" "Babe" or fumble to make tentative physical contact with her. Even though I have known John for a long while at this point, it feels like this person is a stranger to me.
John doesn't seem to have the same issues, I can see it in his big blue eyes and the slight smile he gives me. That's the kind of stuff that sends a really mixed signal because part of me thinks it's authentic, that John really likes me and is using Dakota's body to express that. Getting all this attention is a little bittersweet, especially when Mary happens to be in the room -- John certainly isn't modifying his behavior out of sensitivity to her, he'll behave the same way whether she can see us or not. Mary, for her part, just seems to endure it.
The strange thing is, away from everyone else, as Marc and John, there actually is a connection. I feel like John has been trying to actively remind me of reasons why our fling became so strong in the first place. We'll go out to run errands and he'll strike up a conversation about serious topics like what it would look like to finally stop hopping from body to body, what I hope for the future, what the difference between performing and real feelings... rational debates that remind me he's a smart, insightful, inquisitive guy.
Things that make me wonder why I'm holding him at arm's length because he's all that in a cute, seemingly available package. The other day we were at the pharmacy and I reached for his hand without thinking, without anyone being around, and he held on and smiled at me before I realized what I had instinctively done. ("We can table that," he snickered when I seemed visible uncomfortable.)
We've bonded. At night in our bedroom, we'll watch old movies like Rocky or Apocalypse Now or the French Connection. He told me he cried afterward remembering how Gene Hackman and his wife died. ("It just hit me in a different way all of a sudden. It just hit me and made me feel.. strange.") Then afterward I'll slip onto my makeshift bed on the floor, and as usual he'll ask me, "Isn't your back getting sore? There's plenty of room..."
And there are nights I wonder why I just don't give in. The Inn has given so much to others and taken so much from me that I wonder, on balance, how it could be wrong for me to just submit and enjoy this. I have some guilt toward Mary -- as much as she seemingly endorsed this scenario, I'm not sure I can feel like I have clean hands until she knows the truth and every party involved has full knowledge and informed consent. Yet at the same time, I'm not rushing to spill the beans, maybe because I want that barrier there (maybe I think I don't deserve happiness?)
And then there's John himself. Though he denies it, how can I truly believe him when he says he didn't time his return to the Inn to coincide with mine? To make a deliberate effort to cast his wife aside in a way that absolves him and positions him intimately with me? Is that paranoid? John is a savvy individual and must have recognized the Inn's potential from the start. I wonder if he's capable of something like that.
And even if not, doesn't the fact that I have such a suspicious mind mean something? How can I commit to this person if this is what I think of them?
And all the same... if not John, who could I ever find happiness with, in this ever-changing chaotic life?
-Marc
