Rusty/Monica: When are folks ready to move out?

Or, I guess, when are other people ready for them to move out?

I've spent a lot of the past few months dealing with students and folks who recently finished college or high school looking for apartments, because while the more senior people at the agency say I'm closer in age and experience to these potential renters than anyone else, I'm pretty sure that it's also a matter of them looking for places with low rents and deposits, so the commissions are smaller for the amount of time put in.  I get it - I've probably got years before I'm handling the multimillion dollar penthouses in the luxury high-rises - but I feel like I'm ready for something a little bigger.  Dad says to be patient because sometimes paying your dues can take years, and maybe outright skipping most of high school and college has me more impatient than I should be. 

I was talking about that while hanging out on the apartment with Katey a few weeks ago and had to pause the game because I got a call from someone who decided, yes, they wanted that place in the Bowery and I had to immediately send a follow-up email in the hopes I was able to lay a claim before the other dozen agencies that the landlord was listing with.  I told her afterward that it was a pretty basic place so I wouldn't get that much from it, so before unpausing the game, she went to get a beer from the fridge and asked me if it only went one way.  Did I just have to limit myself to the studios I was assigned, or could I start with a client and find them a condo? 

Because she and Omar were looking to find a place. 

That stopped me dead in my tracks.  "Have you talked to Dad about that yet?"

"Why, do you think she's got a line on a place in Manhattan with parking and enough space that Omar and I can both work from home without driving each other nuts?"

"I just mean--"

"Relax, I'm not asking you to keep this a secret or anything; I'll tell her soon.  I just figure it's better to present it to Emilia as something that's already in the works, you know?  Maybe bring her along when you show us someplace nice, because you know she's going to be weird about it."

"I guess, although, it does seem kind of like a big step."

"Is it, though?  Omar and I have been dating a year and I spend one or two nights a week at his place anyway, plus vacations.  And before you say I'm really just 18, that means I'd have been moving away for college soon enough anyway.  Hell, original-Katey had a bunch of friends who got married straight out of high school!"

"I suppose.  Uh, I guess I can see what we've got in our system if you send me where you want to be and your price range."

"Great!"  She chugged the rest of her beer, burped, and then headed back to the couch so we could start playing again.

I got a text from her the next morning when I happened to be at my desk, so I did a quick search and looked through what I found.  There were a few places, but one thing I've learned is that everyone overestimates what they can afford in Manhattan at first.  I emailed her some listings, she sent back "ouch!" and then nothing and I thought that might be the end of it, at least until a week later, when Dad and Jonah were sitting in the living room as I returned from a run, and asked why I hadn't told them about Katey looking for an apartment. 

"She said she would" didn't go over well as a response, but it was kind of all I had.  "You said you were going to treat us like grown-ups over a year ago, and I see grown-ups looking for new places all the time!  And don't you like Omar a lot more than his roommate who is always staring at your boobs?"

"Yes, but...  You girls have been so successful, but you're still so young and inexperienced!  I can really use your help convincing Katey to wait a bit."

"Hey, I want Katey to stay too, but--"

Jonah have me a stare.  "But you need the commission?"

"No, I want the commission!"  Dad and Jonah didn't laugh.  "But I can't say no, or half-ass this, can I?  Like, it's starting to feel weird to call her either my brother or my sister, but saying she's my friend or roommate doesn't feel right, and if I won't come through for her, she might, I don't know, start feeling like I'm less than even that, and move out without us being involved."

Dad didn't like the sound of that and told me she was sure Katey wouldn't hold that against me, just that it was tough to think of being in this together when that might mean splitting up.  By the end of the evening, she had more or less decided that what really bothered her was keeping secrets, and I guess that I felt the same way.  I think Katey was actually kind of relieved that Dad found out as well, because Dad did have a lot more experience in finding a place than she or Omar did. 

It also took a lot of pressure off when I did start showing Katey apartments. I was lucky the first time was just her, because she got to giggle at me in my blazer, pencil skirt, and heels, carrying around a case full of stapled printouts and sounding really rehearsed as I unconsciously forgot who I was talking to and slipped into my salesgirl voice.  It is kind of funny - I actually do want to be a lot more honest and forthcoming than typical with her than anyone else, but you fall into habits.

Of course, the third time she did it, I pulled out my phone and opened her employer's YouTube channel so that I could play back how she sounds when she's pitching the fourth amazing discovery of the summer, and we called a truce. 

Omar came with her after that, and while the vibe was different - he wanted to help his girlfriend do a friend a solid but also wanted to make sure I knew that he was doing that and he wasn't going to accept anything less because of that, which is fine.  Omar can be intense but like I told Dad, he's cooler than a lot of other guys he hangs around with.  I think he was also a lot more realistic about what this was going to cost than Katey, considering that they basically were looking for a three bedroom because I'd they were both going to work remotely, they needed to do it without bothering each other, especially if Katey was going to be streaming that day.  He's also been living in a fancier part of town than we have. 

I've got to admit, I don't know if either Dad or me is ready for Katey to move out, but seeing her and Omar look at places and talk about what they'd do with them, I think she actually may be, and i hope I'm helping her find a good spot. 

- Rusty/Monica

Marc: "How does it feel?"

"About what I expected," I tell John, stretching out my limbs. "I've been a woman before."

I go over to the mirror and examine the way Dustin's huge tee-shirt covers my body like a dress. I feel familiar -- and unfamiliar -- aches in my joints from aging decades overnight.

My cheekbones. My eyes. My nose. My lips. Anything I'm not sure about, well, I guess I'll have to get used to it. I fuss with my bangs and try to determine what side they want to be on.

"Was this a mistake?" I wonder.

I turn and lean against the wall, folding my arms under my breasts, which feel both big and small, after having a man's muscles there. Small arms against a small abdomen.

"The furthest thing," he says, standing and crossing the room. He's in his boxers, and I can see his somewhat unflattering physique, love handles, salt and pepper body hair. Half-naked, he looks so vulnerable, but in a weird way that makes him seem more powerful. It's not a turn-on the way it was when he was Koti and I'd see her little body, but I'm not not looking. I've seen it, after all. I've been with it.

He puts his hands on my arms and I flinch a bit before looking back up at him. He's only a little bit taller than me, which is reassuring. He wraps me up in a hug from behind.

The door opens and someone pokes their head in. "It's Mary," says a strange voice. When she enters fully, I can't even meet her eyeline, keeping her in my peripheral vision. I observe her dark skin and elegant features. She's extremely beautiful, a fact that his me strangely in the gut, rather than any other part. "Don't let me interrupt," she says wryly.

Feeling exposed, I move to sit on the bed. I was a woman for about two years, but after being three different men, the sensation of not having a male piece between my legs is unfamiliar all over again. I feel fidgety, like I don't know what to do with myself. It's a lot of hair on my head, albeit not as thick or as voluminous as Chantelle's. It fine-textured and falls above my shoulders; I could live with that. 

John's eyes are on me. No matter what he says, I think he's a little unsure about this.

Two weeks ago.

I returned to the house to pack up. Everyone was going their separate ways. We found somewhere for Dakota, Dustin and Cassie to live. PJ will be living there too -- that confusion will be for the "originals" to work out.

When the three of us had a private moment, we put it all out there. At some point over the summer, I had revealed to Mary when my affair with John started. Because their relationship has, in their words, crumbling for years, she took it reasonably well. She was hurt, but altogether very understanding. "I blame one person for John's behavior, and that's John."

John -- as Koti -- just kind of sat there as we went over the facts. How Mary and I deduced that he had manipulated the situation to not only get back to the Inn when I was going, but also make it seem like a coincidence.

I wouldn't say I love John. The chemistry we have is sometimes hot, sometimes frustrating. I'm angry with him but I also understand him. And in a weird way the idea of cutting him loose and making him someone else's problem makes me uncomfortable. I wasn't going to commit to him, but neither would I definitely say I was walking away from any version of "us." I felt like we had unfinished business, and that I would probably stay in his life in some form, if only to make sure he gets his own body back and stays there. But what about the unknowns? He and I hemmed and hawed over it. "What if I'm married, what if I'm too young, what if I'm a straight man or a gay female, or someone from overseas or..." I ran over all of these scenarios that I felt could keep us apart, and he said he didn't think it was all that important and that if I wanted, I would find some way back to him.

Then Mary cleared her throat and said, "I can't believe you two haven't come up with the obvious solution."

"Which is what?" he asked.

"Marc should be me."

Excuse us?

"Marc's prepared to be a woman. I'm not that much older than him. If I go back to being myself, John, we're just going to have a shitty, drawn-out divorce nobody wants. Marc, you should just be me, and figure out for yourself how to define that relationship. That's your best shot."

"Mary--" I started to say.

"What am I going back to, really? How does it make any more sense for Marc to roll the dice than me? Let me go, get me out of this, and you two can figure it out."

We just kind of looked at each other, John and I. A wide grin crossed Koti's face, something mischievous and sinister that filled me with dread.

"I could go for that," John said. "Marc, would you?"

I sighed. Rolling the dice is one thing. Pronouncing I will be this specific person, this woman, for you, is different.

But... what else was there to do? I'm about 40 years old, in spirit, it's time to do something on purpose for once.

...

I was not asleep when it happened. I was jolted out of whatever dream I was having and I noticed my pecs had already softened. My hair grown shaggier.

I stood up and paced the room. This was real. My hips became too slender to hold up my boxers, and then my manhood receded into me and they dropped and I knew I was a woman again. A specific woman. I had a new life.

John stirred. Daylight was breaking.

"Marc?" he murmured, his voice rough.

"I guess not anymore," I said in my new soft voice.

"How does it feel?"

-Marc/Mary

Caleb/Rylee: Never liked pool parties anyway...

Hanging around the house getting used to being Rylee was starting to get a little suffocating, so when one of her friends reached out to hangout I decided “fuck it”. Even if the time to head out to college was coming soon, where I theorized that I could be a lot more myself without raising any eyebrows, it was still the case that sometimes I was going to have to be “Rylee” around people who know her more intimately. A casual hangout seemed the perfect time to practice that, so I sent the confirmation, made sure I looked presentable enough (still very tied to the “jeans and tee” look for now), and headed out.

With the lack of good teen “hangout” spots, we had agreed to meet up at some local sit-in restaurant and get some lunch. Heading inside, I spotted a girl sitting at a booth waving me down. Thank god for social media and caller ID having given me both the name and face to connect to this stranger. Her name was Grace, and from the photos I took it that she was a schoolmate of Rylee’s and fellow drama enthusiast. Plenty of pics of them from practice, messing around in costumes, that kind of thing. I think I had a couple inches over her, balanced out by her being a bit more curvy. And girly, sporting a nice summer dress and well maintained blonde hair over my androgynous clothing and simple ponytail.

“Wow, you look like a mess,” she says as I slide in across from her.

“Sorry, I’ve been, uh, packing for the move,” I say, giving the best excuse I could think of for why I was dressed down.

“Uggh, don’t remind me,” she groans. “I can’t believe we’re going to be split up. But you know my parents, wanting me to keep up the family tradition of…”

And that’s how things went for the first few minutes, exchanging complaints about the whole college experience. If I hadn’t been the one in Rylee’s shoes right now I’d feel bad for two friends getting split up over silly things like alumni status and such, but being her I couldn’t help but feel a little glad that it seemed Rylee was the only one of her friend group heading to the particular college she was in.

“Anyway, I think I got the perfect idea of how to forget about it all, at least for a little bit. If, you know, you’re up for it,” Grace says, eyeing me warily.

“Shoot?”

“Well, Evan is apparently holding one last pool party at his house before everyone splits up. If you don’t want to go though I’d totally understand.”

I still haven’t exactly gotten over my aversion to wanting to be in a swimsuit, but seeing as Rylee did have some conservative enough one piece suits and I was really starting to feel the cabin fever, I figured if I wore some shorts and a top over it and went in if I felt like it I could probably make it work.

“Yeah, I got no problem with it. Sounds like fun!” I say, digging into some of those exercises to try and up-regulate myself into sounding actually excited.

“Wow, good for you! If it was me I’d totally avoid going to a party my ex was throwing.”

That threw me for a loop as I did not, at any point, recall Rylee mentioning an ex. I could already feel the awkwardness of having to navigate that situation, but I couldn’t back out now that I had agreed to it and gotten praise for it.

“Pfft, yeah, of course. We’re all adults now, right? We can stay friends and hangout and stuff,” I say to save face.

Once I got home, however, I immediately started texting Rylee wondering who this Evan guy was. The response I got back felt a little dismissive:

Yeah we broke up a couple months ago cause going to different colleges.
It was mutual so should be cool, don’t sweat it!

So that was the situation when the weekend arrived and it was pool party time. I ultimately chickened out of going for a swimsuit. Even with a one piece, I still wasn't quite feeling up to it. Perhaps having had high school friends gawking at swimsuit issues or girls getting in and out of the pool while bothering me for my opinion on things had just soured the idea of swimming like this in general. Still, it was hot enough outside I had at least relented to wearing a pair of shorts and a white tank-top. That by itself was fine, but the decision to go without a bra, thinking it would be more comfortable, would in retrospect be a bad one...

I had been hanging onto Grace as a social life line for the party at our little station at a poolside table. She had been facilitating most of the conversation with the rest of Rylee’s friends and acquaintances as they filtered through, my chiming in only when I could comfortably say something about college worries or some random bit of pop culture I recognized. My age gap with Rylee was small enough that we theoretically would have similar spheres of recognition, the gender and personal preferences being the main thing keeping me unaware of some of what got brought up. 

Still, I must have been giving a bit of a vibe of not wanting to be bothered as it was all quick, and most people eventually let me be there in presence even if I wasn’t talking much.

Eventually, though, he made his way over to us and…look, even as a guy I could appreciate on an aesthetic level if a guy was handsome. Dirty blonde hair, white teeth, a physique fully in line with his status of a student athlete (think Rylee had said basketball), and in just his swimming trunks he was making sure everyone was seeing it. Magnifying the effect was the glistening of water dripping off him, a quick run of the hand through his hair to get the excess out managed it leaving it a mess of curls.

Point is, he was out, he knew it, and I was not appreciating the warmth in my face that was starting to creep in as I watched him approach. 

“Glad you two could make it,” he says as he takes a seat across from me. While he said two, the way he looked at me made it clear he meant he was glad I made it.

“Y-yeah, of course, wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” I spit out as my mind races to figure out why all of a sudden I was feeling warmer. Had to have just been some kind of residual memories of Rylee’s body’s feelings towards him or something, right?

I did my best to not look like I was drooling over him no matter what Rylee’s body wanted to do, but it was eventually clear he must have noticed. Directing the conversation towards me, attempting to playfully touch me, eye contact. If Rylee was under the impression he was over her, I’m pretty confident in saying she was dead wrong.

“I, uh, think I’m going to get me some more soda,” I eventually say, wanting the excuse to leave the conversation.

In my rush, however, I didn’t notice another partygoer coming by, and in a sitcom-esque loss of balance I found myself tripping into the pool. Quickly surfacing, I glance down and see that the choice of white tank-top had been a bad idea. As soaked as I was, it was turning translucent, and with no bra or swimsuit to provide a second layer of coverage...

Grace and Evan were quick to act, getting a towel and helping me out of the pool before escorting me into the house and into the bathroom.

“I’ll grab some clothes from my sister’s stuff. I think you’re about the same size,” Evan says as he shuts the door, leaving me to dry myself off.

As I was just finishing getting undressed and starting to dry off I heard the door open. Thinking it was Grace, because who else would it be, I turned around, having just finished drying off a leg, and gave the clothes-handling Evan a nice flash of…well, everything.

“What the fuck dude!” I yell out as he quickly shuts it again with a million apologies.

“Sorry, I did not think you’d get undressed that quick,” he says from the other side of the door. “Though let’s be honest, it’s not like you showed me anything I haven't seen already.”

That froze me in my tracks.

I guess it should have occurred to me that Rylee and Evan, both being perfectly healthy, attractive, likely allosexual teens and dating meant they likely would have had sex. Considering my personal baseline, however, it had just never crossed my mind, and now that the fact Rylee's body was up for it was something I wasn't quite mentally ready to process half-naked in a stranger's bathroom.

“Oh shut up, Evan, and just let me handle this” Grace says, shooing him away from the room entirely before politely opening the door a crack and handing me the change of clothes Evan had brought.

Once I was ready I gently opened the door and peeked out.

“Don’t worry, it’s just me. Can’t believe he pulled that shit. I mean, he’s usually a nice guy but guess even he has his moments of stupid boy brain,” Grace says, giving a death glare to the door as if trying to telepathically fry Evan.

“Yeah, well…yeah,” I say. In my head I had thought of maybe making some kind of quip or whatever. Rylee felt like the kind of self-confident and theatrical person to respond to faux pas like this with a quip to reassert herself. Perhaps I was going to need some improve classes or two cause I was coming up blank. Even now, writing this up, best I could figure out was maybe something about how for bragging about seeing anything he still couldn't get my sizes right cause his sister's clothes were just a little tight.

After that, the rest of the party didn't really matter. Evan gave his apologies again but otherwise kept away, I mingled a bit more with the rest of Rylee's friend group and took the appropriate pictures for the social media, and then we left. 

What does matter, though, is the implications of it all. 

Having read through the blog, I know it’s pretty much the case that whatever body you end up in you eventually start to find yourself sharing the original person's sexual tendencies. Maybe not in the exact preferences and such, but the overall orientation. Kaitlyn made some comments about how it relates to a biological basis for orientations and such, but, I don’t know, I guess I still had it in mind maybe it’d just be a thing I wouldn’t have to worry about? After all, sex was just a thing that never really interested me as a guy, but even I have enough awareness to know that the way my body was reacting to Evan, well, it definitely had a curiosity about the idea.

Then again, it all could have just been a one off, a remnant of the fact that this body had been intimate with Evan’s. Once we’re off at completely different colleges I can just hunker down on making sure I don’t screw up classes and I won’t ever have to worry about this stuff again, right?

Isaac/Ainsley: If you know what's right...

I was awake at about 2 AM the night we finally got thirteen people at the Inn. The change hadn't happened yet, and really, I don't understand how anyone who knows what's about to happen to them is capable of sleeping through it. I wasn't even looking at my phone. Something felt dirty about doomscrolling while waiting for something with this much significance. Instead I just sat there, cross-legged and staring at the wall in some kind of meditative pose as if meditation's something I actually know anything about. But when my phone buzzed, I picked it up anyway.

It was Heather, calling from the room next door. Physically visiting was out of the question for fear of ending up in the wrong bodies.

"Hey, hey Isaac, you're still up, right?" Sara's voice sounded like she'd been drinking. The last year's keyed me into a lot of the tells.

"Yeah? You okay?"

"Y-yeah. I'm fine. Totally." I think she sniffled. "I want you to give me one good reason I shouldn't run away right now."

"What?"

"Like. Like from the Inn. Away from here. Before... y'know."

"You're not actually going to--"

"Tell me."

"Well." I took a deep breath. "You'd ruin everything for Sara. You know that. And for Ainsley, and for me and everyone else at the Inn right now if we can't get get someone to take your body on short notice, and it, it's wrong, you know--"

"I know!" Heather sputtered. "I know I know I know I know I know!!! I'd be horrible, a-a monster, it fucks everything up forever, I know. I don't need you to tell me that. 'Cept for how I just did, I guess." She found it in herself to laugh a bit at her own joke.

"So why--"

"I wasn't planning on it when we came in here. To Maine. I mean, Marvin put you through all that crap and he still handed over your body, and I'm not gonna be worse than him, right? But it's- it's different when you know it's coming for real, the gun's aimed at your head and you know you're gonna wake up sick and it's all gonna hit you all at once and I. I can't stop thinking about it! It's a whole, fight-or-flight, thing. God. Does this happen to everyone here who knows they're about to get a couple decades older and they're all too ashamed to admit it or did I just screw up my life that bad!?"

"It's gonna be okay," I said, after a lengthy pause in which I failed to come up with anything besides a platitude. I didn't really believe it. I picked that one up from Ainsley's friends and I don't know if they believed it either.

"Pfft. Sure." She sniffled some more. "Y'know? This was the best year I've had since, since... I don't even wanna think about it. I got to be bright and fun and cool and risky and energetic and I stole it all from someone else!! And I feel terrible about it, but, I won the Inn, Isaac. So many people get completely ruined by this place but I won, and if I were more of a piece of shit than I am I just never would've come back here. I don't have anything to come back to, I was, I am this warped, bitter shell and my kids don't want anything to do with me 'cause I ruined that too and I'm on track to die sad. I see it coming. And now I'm in this body that wants to live but I'm going back, by choice, 'cause if I don't ignore everything in me screaming to run away I'll never be able to sleep at night again."

I didn't know what to say. I've never been any good at comforting someone who's just venting and doesn't need any actual advice I'm capable of giving. Especially over the phone, where I can't use my body language. This kind of thing happened to me a lot with Ainsley's friends and I always felt like I was doing something wrong, more so than usual. I think I kind of suck at being a girl. And what does anyone even say here? I wasn't about to get thirty years older, I couldn't go "that's just how life is" or something worse. I can't understand where she's coming from, not really. Or should I have congratulated her for not doing one of the worst things anyone can possibly do to a person?

"It'll be okay," I sighed. Was that really the best I could think of? "Just... Just stay here. We can keep talking. If that helps."

"Wow, really? You oughta be a therapist." Heather started snickering before she abruptly cut herself off. "Actually, no, no, that was cruel. I dumped all that on you and I-- You can tell I'm a cruel person since that's the first thing I thought to say. Like, wow, what a bitch! I-I'm sorry. Really."

"Heather, I said this when I first met you, and I'll say it again-- I've had worse roommates."

"Heh." Her laugh didn't sound conflicted that time. I imagined Sara smiling to herself. Heather didn't hang up, but the line stayed quiet long enough for me to slip back into my own thoughts (and maybe even emotional exhaustion-induced sleep) before she broke the silence again.

"Am I really the only one who thought about what it'd be like if we didn't go back?"

Not this again. "Huh?"

"I mean. You've never seemed like you got much going on in your life, I guess? You complained about Ainsley's life a lot but I never really heard you say much about stuff you miss, besides the lower expectations. And your plants."

"So because I'm kind of pathetic, you think spending the rest of my life pretending to be a sorority girl would be an improvement?"

"If it was permanent, you wouldn't have to. That's the thing. You could ditch her friends and do whatever you want. Hang out with me and Sara's friends, maybe. I could tell you're kinda jealous."

"Are you kidding? You saw exactly what happened that time you dragged me to a concert and-- no." I'm never telling her she's vaguely right about that last part, but everything else about that spiel was out of line. "No. Back up. Did I think about what I'd do if I were stuck and had to like, cope with it? A little. But it was never a-- I can do whatever I want and not have to put up with someone else's friends in my own body! And as a bonus, I get to see my parents again. And, y'know, for someone who's spent the last year talking about how I don't appreciate my life enough, you're being incredibly cavalier about the idea of me throwing away five years of my twenties. You remember I'm really 21, right?"

That got her quiet again for a little while.

"Yeah. Okay, I-I shouldn't have-- I guess it was just, part of the fantasy I made for myself which I hate that I have about getting to stay but-- Sorry." Heather sighed. "I'd just miss having you around if it was only me who stayed."

"You really think that?"

"Yeah. You're on my mind, kiddo. You know, during that whole thing where you just threw yourself into being Ainsley, I just, I was really worried about you. I don't know if I ever properly told you that. And that's the other reason I asked about if you'd thought about what it'd be like to stay. I just... the way you tried so hard to be someone else, I don't know if someone who thinks they're leaving a lot behind would've been able to do that. So, I... I worry. That's all."

"...I care about you, too," I said after a while. "After all that, it'd be weird not to. You've helped me a lot. So, yeah. Though I'm not about to pretend you do were always the best roommate."

"Oh honey, you don't gotta, I know." Heather laughed again, full and genuine. "You know, sometimes you remind me so much of my Violet, before she-- oh shit I think I see--"

She hung up. I felt it, too.

I don't know if it happens the same way for everyone, but in my case the first sign was the hair, thickening, darkening, everywhere. I'd always had a lot of body hair, and after a year without it it felt only more so, great black vines breaking through my skin as it went subtly paler. Even on my face, which was a surprise-- I always kept myself clean-shaven, and Marvin didn't have a beard when I saw him two months ago. I barely even registered my head hair slowly retreating into my skull despite that being a far more blatant violation of the laws of physics. For a little while, I had the odd sensation of full breasts entirely covered in coarse chest hair (God, did I always have that much?) before the rest of my body began to catch up. Every second I inflated a little more, grew more rigid, and I hate that this is the least uncomfortably phallic terminology I could come up with to describe a masculinizing torso. My hands doubled in size. To my surprise a regrowing penis was far overshadowed by how I felt just above it, the entire abdomen churning inside or less frequently descending. My breath quickened until well after the changes subsided.

It's not me, in the selfie camera. It's not Isaac Strauss, not anything like the way I left him. This man has a full beard and a tight haircut and actual muscle and is missing a year's worth of babyface. He looks like he belongs somewhere. I kept staring, kept looking at every angle to find the old me in there, as if I could tear the Marvin off of me if I found the right seam. All I got was ephemeral flashes of what I wanted to see. Is my self-conception so awful that I'm just not myself if I don't look pathetic? At least Ainsley's body was supposed to be different.

I heard a knock on the door. I stood up, steadied myself, feeling like a lumbering giant although I only had a few inches on Ainsley and weigh about the same as her. I opened the door to see Heather Flynn, just like the in the old photos she used to show me of her with her kids, except she's gently crying. She reached out for a much-needed hug, and I embraced her with a hollow strength no body I've occupied ever had. I wanted to cry, too, but it's not as easy as it used to be.

Kiara: Life and Stuff

I made it through Donovan's class without incident. He and I were obviously frosty with each other, but I behaved myself and, in the four walls of the classroom, we were able to interact like a normal student and teacher. I finished with an 88 but he never really lavished my work with praise, simply writing "Very good," and "well observed" on my papers. Okay, fine.

Auto shop... haha, I got a 60 there, but I passed and now I could change my own oil if I wanted to squish my tits under a car.

I have one term left. Looking at the courses available, there wasn't much I could take, so I bit the bullet and went for cosmetology. It's going to be a test of just how much of a woman I've become. I don't have a knack for it so far, but I'm keeping an open mind now that this stuff is semi-relevant to my life. It's "the family business" after all. 

Which gives me pause to think about what comes next. I am 18 years old and have basically chosen to stay in this life for the long haul. Simply drifting through it and making the same choices my adoptive mother made doesn't appeal to me, but there are limitations. I have a kid, I need to support her and myself, and as time goes by my younger siblings are depending on me a bit more. 

Sometimes I lie up at night and I cry because of where this train of thought goes. Trying to find time and energy to get an education and enter the job market and establish myself -- sheesh, could you think of a worse time to be a young person starting out? I thought I had it bad in the 2010's -- all on my own, with all of this on my shoulders. It would be so much easier with someone else. I've never really yearned to be in a couple, and I still don't, but it's a horrifying thought that partnering up with someone would really ease the burden. This is how people get trapped. This is how they get stuck in bad situations. That's when the tears start. What would I do for Kiara-and-Sienna?

In other news, Cerie and Byrd are no more. Thank God. Having your younger sister date your baby daddy is a complicated and uncomfortable situation. I obviously don't think much of Byrd -- his record on child support is spotty, but he's around. Cerie, weirdly, is growing on me. Ever since her brief pregnancy, she's changed and matured. She told me that Byrd wanted to try to have another kid with her, and she told him she wasn't interested, a huge turnaround from when she expected all of us to be happy for her when she was pregnant (and most of the family was.) I took her out for mochas and she told me privately she wasn't sure if she wanted to try to have kids ever again after that experience. I told her that the time might come when it feels right, but there was definitely no rush, and she agreed. You love to hear something like that, to watch someone mature and develop before your eyes... but she still hogs the damn bathroom in the mornings.

-Kiara

Isaac/Ainsley: And the trees are sweetly blooming

Even after everything I've been through in the last year, I still don't like feeling visible in public. Or maybe that's not much of a surprise, but you'd at think I'd at least be acclimated enough to just suck it up and deal with it, right?

Well, kind of. In practice there were never very many places I went to by myself as Ainsley. I learned to tolerate and tunnel-vision through the commute to work, the grocery store, the small loop where I walked SugarBunny. (I imagine Ainsley's walks with SugarBunny had a lot more variety than my own did.) The Lounge, eventually. There were some others during my, manic episode, like the gym, but even if I wanted to reproduce those days I don't think it'd be possible right now. Not while I'm on the precipice of being Isaac again. Regardless, I hardly ever went out without a group, besides a few specific places I had no choice but to tolerate out of necessity.

Old Orchard Beach isn't one of those places. Like I said a lifetime ago, being alone in a place like this feels inherently suspect to me, for no good reason, and being Ainsley hasn't changed that besides replacing some of the suspectness with other vulnerabilities. But I have Heather to wander around with me this time, so it's not so bad.

Of course, she's still Heather...

"Heather? Is this yours?" A lavender bikini sat on the bed in my room at the Inn. Heather and I have separate rooms connected through a shared bathroom.

"Pretty sure it's yours," came the muffled reply from the bathroom.

"It's definitely not mine, I know I didn't pack any."

"Well, I did." Heather opened the door, wearing a sundress clearly meant to be a coverup. She sat down on my bed like she owned the place. "I snuck into your room while you were dropping off SugarBunny at the kennel and dug up a couple from Ainsley's drawers to throw in your suitcase. So. I think it's yours."

I didn't dignify that with any expression stronger than blankly staring at her. "God. Have you been reading the blog?"

She laughed. "Look, I'm never gonna look this good in a bikini again, and I'm not the first Inn guest to realize that. Some things are traditions for a reason."

"That doesn't expl--"

"And the same goes for you. C'mon. Don't you want to at least try something you'll never get the chance to do again? You might as well try being girly when Ainsley's friends aren't making you do it."

"And it's so much better when you're making me do it?"

"I'd like to think so." I wonder if she'll be this enthusiastic when she's thirty years older.

I rolled my eyes, which must've made me look to Heather like one of the far too many teenage girls she's encountered over her career, and I choose to assume that's why she giggled at me. "You're just saying all that because you don't want to be the only one of us in a bikini."

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm the one who's scared of that? You gonna think about what you said for five seconds?" I couldn't argue that she had a point; she's been wearing Sara's skimpiest clothes since we got to the Inn. "Please. Y'know, some of us call that projection."

I wore the bikini.

I wish I'd brought a book with me to Maine. I get why that's a stereotype now; the sun's glare was so strong that it was nearly impossible to see my phone's screen, and you really need some form of distraction from the fact that you're just sitting there in what amounts to socially acceptable underwear. We really should've just shelled out for an umbrella, I don't intend on giving Ainsley an accidental sunburn as a parting gift and I don't think Sara's body is even capable of tanning.

I don't know how much time I spent in my own world before Heather tapped me on a bare shoulder. "Y'know, I don't think I've ever seen you take a selfie, and now you've been trying out angles for like, ten minutes. Like what you see?"

I blushed. "It's not like that!" I turned my phone towards her to show the screen was off, not that it'd make much of a difference if it was on in this lighting. "I'm looking at my reflection on the screen-- don't look at me like that, it's the only thing our phones are good for right now and what am I gonna do, sleep? I can't sleep like this."

"I could sleep like this." Heather theatrically stretched out and yawned.

"Yeah, well, I know most people would be totally okay sleeping basically naked in public, but I guess I'm just built different."

I sat up a bit higher and pulled my knees closer to my torso, sighing. "I just thought I'd be more used to this, I guess? After this long? We're on a crowded beach in the middle of summer, there's women in bikinis in every direction, I've been wearing bras for a year, I know nothing looks out of the ordinary here and I still feel like I'm a freak."

"Wow, I can't believe I'm talking to the first girl ever to be insecure with how she looks in a bikini."

"Oh, fuck off, you know it's different. And I know I look, Ainsley looks... fine. Good, even." My voice got lower the closer I got to genuinely complimenting Ainsley's appearance, before I caught myself and cleared my throat. "It's not a logical thing, okay? I was like this before the Inn, too. Not that I was wearing bikinis, but I always thought I looked gross shirtless."

Heather thought for a moment. "Well, at least you're admitting it's not logical, since I'd say you're wrong abou-- actually forget I said that."

"Oh, so you're agreeing with me that my old body's--" Then I remembered the particular circumstances in which Heather actually had seen Isaac Strauss' body shirtless. "As I was saying. I've never liked showing much skin. There's swimshirts but those just look stupid. I've always kind of hated the beach except when I was a little kid."

"I'm sorry, the guy who spent money to spend two weeks in a town called Old Orchard Beach hates the beach?"

"Ugh. I wasn't supposed to be alone, it wasn't my idea, the booking was non-refundable, I was going insane. You know this already, come on."

"I know, I know, I just couldn't not make that joke after you said all that."

"Well, I already know everything's a joke to you."

That got her to quiet down for a while. Served her right, I thought at the time. I've spent the last year dealing with her and Marvin and Ainsley's friends trying to prod their way into my issues even well past the point where it's called for.

I went back to alternating between staring at my phone and the sky (it'd be nice to be able to sleep like this) for a while. The next time I looked over at Heather, I saw tears welling up in her eyes.

"Hey, are you crying?"

She sighed. "Don't worry about it."

"You know, if you saw me crying and I went all 'don't worry about it', you'd practically want to interview me. But I'll--"

"It's hard to stop being a mom," Heather spoke softly. "Even after everyone leaves you."

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I went back to laying down and just kind of feeling bad about the whole thing. Eventually she sat up, dusted off a part of her hand which had strayed from her towel, and started packing up her things.

"Hey. Want to take some selfies?" I asked.

Heather grinned a bit. "That'd be a first, coming from you."

"Well, people keep telling me I need to try these things, apparently."

We took some selfies before we got back to packing up. Heather was really fussy about her exact facial expression and it took us a while to get one she found acceptable. I'd rolled my eyes about it, but then I didn't like how I looked in the one she got, and we must've spent a solid five minutes trying to get one that satisfied both of us before I finally had enough of my fit of vanity and we left the beach.

Heather kept looking at the selfies as we walked back. "Where'd you learn to smile like that?"

"More time practicing in front of a mirror than I'd like to count."

I looked at the selfie again and saw two completely ordinary young women on a beach trip. I looked at Sarah, and down at my body in the bikini, and back at the crowd, and I saw the same thing. Crazy.

Elias/Meadow: Us-Day

Francis and I both had Saturday off, which was a pretty unusual situation. When we realized that at the beginning of the week, he kind of came to me and said, "Hey, should we do something? Spend the day together?"

I kind of froze. I've gotten really good at tip-toing around him but I'm warming up to him. It's nice to have meals together and to talk a bit at the end of the day. Comfort is growing. The other day I found myself putting my feet up on his lap and he reached for them and started rubbing them and I didn't mind it. And I was kind of wrecked like, what does this mean, do I like this?

It's part of my job as Meadow to be in this relationship... that's a favor I'm doing for her, because there's no reason to let a good relationship go to waste right? But this felt like a new step. Am I ready for this, and on some level was I... excited about it? How do I separate Elias from Meadow, if I even should?

So the idea was to spend all day doing stuff together. It would be the most relationshippy day I'd had since getting here.

We woke up that morning around the same time, with the sun coming through our window, and he wrapped his big arm around me. Immediately this was different because we're on different schedules we don't really get up at the same time. And I could feel his wood against my leg, which... I don't know about, but that's just a fact. I don't have time to process it or anything before he starts kissing me. Okay, we're starting with kissing.

So we're kissing and touching and the part of me that is Meadow's body is fine with that and telling the part of me that is Elias' mind to be quiet for a bit. Then he reaches into my panties...

"Ah, ah ah..." I stop him. "Um... I don't know if I'm... up for that right now."

"Oh, okay," he says, probably a little disappointed, but respectful.

We got dressed. I put on a nice dress... I've had enough time in the wardrobe with Jennie to know what a nice dress is and how to appreciate it... and I even did a bit of makeup, even though it makes me face feel hot. And we went out for breakfast.

I have this trick I do where I just let him talk. It's called the Solid Snake method, from the video game. Whenever someone says something you just prompt them to keep going. People love it because most people just want to talk about themselves and they don't notice that you're not really part of the conversation. It saves me from having to stay "in character" as Meadow too much and speak as her, and I highly recommend it for anyone in my situation. He spent most of the time talking about things that had happened at work, and things he had seen online.

From there we went furniture shopping. I don't think we need any more furniture at the apartment and I don't think we could afford most of the stuff there but apparently it's one of Meadow's favorite things to do. He made a remark that he was surprised I hadn't already filled a cart with knick-knacks and throws and I had to be like "Oh, I'm just waiting for the right thing to jump out at me." I ended up buying some handcrafted coasters I thought were pretty neat, and a blanket just because.

Then we got ice cream and people-watched, then went to the movies. He was surprised I was interested in seeing the new Spider-Man. I guess that's an Elias thing not a Meadow thing, so I told him he could explain it to me afterward if it would make him happy. 

After that we got dinner from a food truck, then went for drinks. He talked about his philosophy of life and his art. He wants to do mixed media stuff and sculptures, and apparently Meadow hasn't always been supportive, at least not to him. I tried to offer him some encouraging words while also staying true to the Meadow "character" by saying I was glad it made him happy and he should make time to work on it.

I was kind of tipsy when we got home, and I kind of thought if he makes a move I might not say no... I mean why not. I was enjoying the day, and I've already kind of resigned myself to the idea that this is part of my duties.

So we got to bed and we started kissing and touching some more, and he started moving pretty fast and I was bracing myself...

He got a condom out, and I was kind of clenching like... here goes nothing...

And then he tried to put it in but...... it wouldn't go.

It was like he hit a wall inside me. It was painful. I told him he had to stop and I was sorry. I didn't want to say "this is wrong" because I don't know what it's like, but... I'm pretty sure that wasn't right.

He started going like, "Well, do you need me to do more? Do you need to get in the mood? do you need lube?" and I just didn't want to think about it so I kind of shut it down.

If he was disappointed, he didn't let it show. He kissed me goodnight, and I kind of rolled over like... what does this mean. Am I going to be able to... you know? Should I? Should I not?  And if I can't, is that going to be a problem?

The next day, I messaged Meadow to be like, "Hey, I don't want this to be weird, but this is what happened... do you have any experience with this, is it normal?" And she said it wasn't her experience and maybe it had something to do with the transformation (of course) and being a guy inside and... I guess... but I felt like, if I was ever going to do it, it would have been then. I don't know. Is this something to go to a doctor about?

For a few hours I was really happy, but now I've kind of crashed out. I want to be good at this.

Caleb/Rylee: Enter, Stage Right

I figured now that I’m officially out and about in the world as “Rylee Thomson” it was appropriate to borrow a bit of lingo from her world.

With our entire lives reduced to a letter stuffed inside a suitcase, it was time for Kaitlyn and I to start the journey back “home”. We both had to admit that getting through TSA was a little nerve-wracking. As paranoid as it might have sounded, there was just that little bit of fear that, somehow, security would call us out as not being the real Clint and Rylee. But nope, we got waved through with the appropriate “Sir” and “Mam” that our new genders required and that was that. Just a regular old flight, one where admittedly I appreciated the extra room that my reduced body size gifted me.

After that, it was just a drive-share ride back to Shannon’s place, where the original Clint had left his car and where Rylee was currently living. It really shouldn’t have surprised either of us that “Mom”had custody of Rylee, even if she was basically an adult now. For a brief window of time there we had thought about trying to convince Shannon to let me finish out the summer with "Clint" before heading off to college, hoping to try and stick together a little bit longer for support. Having already gotten on her bad side with this “last minute extended vacation”, however, we ultimately decided it’d be easier to stick with the current arrangement. It wasn’t like Kaitlyn was going to be that far, anyway, as Clint was currently staying in an apartment elsewhere in the city.

It was early evening by the time we arrived. The house was nice enough, just a standard slice of American suburbia with it’s two floors, a two-car garage, a front yard with like one tree and a flowerbed to give it some decoration. Taking deep-breathes we headed in to the first real challenge of our new lives.

“Well, it’s about time you two got back,” a woman’s voice calls out from the open-concept kitchen/dining room area.

Rylee gave me real type-A personality vibes from the conversations we had, and looking at Shannon, I could take a real good guess where she got it from. Apparently, she’s an accountant, and she looked the part sitting at the table, papers neatly stacked as she typed away at a computer. Her graying but still brunette hair was done up in a sloppy looking bun, her white button up shirt slightly unbuttoned to get some relief from the warm summer air. At our arrival, however, she promptly closed the computer, folded her hands in front of her, and stared us down from over her thin-framed glasses.

“So, how was the play?”

“The pl-oh, right, the play…”

I briefly go into the details of that community play, doing my best to come up with some kind of analysis or commentary on it befitting someone who was supposed to be a huge theater nerd. It had been something about a woman finding out more about her recently deceased younger sister’s life through a D&D campaign she had wrote. Shannon didn't seem too interested in the details of it, but whatever comments I had about it seemed to satisfy her enough to not require me to relive English class all over again (I was going to have plenty of that later after all). She dismissed me to my room to unpack, but it was clear that “Clint” wasn't out of the doghouse yet. From upstairs I could hear everything, especially because I just snuck around the top of the stairs just around the corner.

“Seriously, Clint, you can’t keep indulging in her every little whim just because you want to be ‘supportive’. We had an agreement!”

“I know, Shannon, and if we had known about the play before we left we could have worked it into the schedule. The circumstances just lined up that…”

“I don’t care about what the ‘circumstances’ were, I care about whether you’re going to get some backbone one day and tell her no. Do you know how frustrating it is to have to always be the bad guy, especially when you go around behind my back and – ”

“Look, it’s all my fault,” I said as I revealed myself, startling the two of them. I figured if I didn’t intervene then things were going to get rough real fast for Kaitlyn.

“I know it was wrong to take advantage of being ‘daddy’s little girl’ like that just to go see some play that, honestly, was just okay. I was impulsive, and I swear it won’t happen again.”

Apologizing must have been an unusual occurrence for Rylee as Shannon’s expression quickly flipped between confusion and frustration as she tried to process things. Sensing an opening, Kaitlyn came in for the emotional kill.

“No, I’m the one who should be apologizing. Your mother’s right, I really should have told you no and stuck to the agreement. I guess I was just being a bit impulsive myself, seeing as how this is going to be the last real vacation we have together before you go off to college…”

Setting aside my own feelings of being reminded of that impending separation from my one ally in this new life, it apparently worked to disarm Shannon enough that she just let out a frustrated sigh.

“I…appreciate that you two recognize you made a mistake,” she said, still clearly surprised to have been saying it. “Let’s just get ourselves all settled for the night. Rylee, go get yourself unpacked, and Clint, have a safe drive home.”

With one last round of good-byes and promises of keeping in touch by text, Kaitlyn was off to go and be Clint and I was left here for the first time, alone, with being Rylee.

What’s crazy is, I’ve slowly started getting into the routine of it all.

The first day or two I got away with sleeping in, and once Shannon went off to work I was left to my own devices to explore.

Rylee’s room definitely screamed want-to-be actor. Shelves with various little awards and picture frames from past performances. A tv stand stuffed to the brim with DVDs of movies and recordings of stage plays. And perhaps it had been a bit judgmental of me to have expected posters of, like, boybands or something, but instead her walls were decked out with posters of the latest big hits and what I presumed personal favorite shows. Clearly she knew what it was she wanted to be, and now I had to be that too.

But hey, I got through that first night convincing enough, right? Maybe there's an actor in me after all. 

Things started to pick up once Shannon noticed I wasn’t doing Rylee’s exercise routine and started shaking me up at six in the morning to get started.  I was surprised that for someone who clearly wasn’t happy with Rylee’s career choice she was so adamant about getting me back onto this schedule. Once I thought about it more, though, it made sense. First off, Shannon seems to have the attitude that if you’re going to commit to something then you better damn well see it through. Second, I think morning exercises were the only thing the two of them did together regularly, making these moments some of the few times the two truly had a moment to bond before things got full teenage angst again.

Still didn't exactly make me enjoy doing the exercises, though. 

Like many of the other guy’s who had gone to the Inn and woke up on the other side of the gender fence, I wasn't exactly wanting to think about my body. Stuffing it all into athletic wear that left little to the imagination wasn’t helping matters, though I did appreciate the sports bras helping to flatten things out on top a little. I’m not exactly an expert on sizes or anything so I have no idea if Rylee’s particularly gifted in that department, but there’s enough there that they dominate my view whenever I look down.

More important than what I was wearing, however, was the actual exercises themselves.

First off was stretching, and not just any stretching, but apparently rotating and moving every single joint in the body followed by hip circles, squats, spine rotations, shoulder passes, even jaw stretches of all things. If there was a body part it was getting moved, all in the name of encouraging body awareness and loosening up those parts that were at risk of injury or wear when doing a performance. Appreciated the latter, not so much the former. Even with the rational awareness that this was my body now and I was going to have to get used to it for at least a year, it was hard to not feel just a little like a creep to have to become so intimately familiar with every last bit of it like that.

After the warmup, depending on the day, we’d either go on a run for cardio, do some strength training to help build up endurance, or my favorite option, rest day. It was usually at that point Shannon would break off to go shower and get ready for work

Which, ugggh, leads to the second half of the routine”: “emotional and sense work”.

Look, I’ll admit, I’ve always been a little bit emotionally…God I hate that the best word I can think of is “constipated", but it's the most appropriate.

Basically, it's always been really hard for me to get really emotional in any kind of way outside of the strongest stimuli. If I'm put in a situation where people expect a strong reaction, I just can't. I remember one time my parents threw me a surprise birthday party, and when the result was just dull surprise all I could offer was “I saw all the cars and balloons on the way in.” So, when I get tasked doing an “emotional ladder” where I start at the lowest level of an emotion and slowly escalate, I can’t help but feel that my personal “10” isn’t exactly what’s expected of me if I need to perform at a “10”.

Except anger, I think I can do anger pretty good right now.

After that my options include “think of an object and act like you’re interacting with it” , “tell a story about an emotional event and try and recall every detail you can”, “describe everything you see in a room for five minutes”, and my personal favorite “stare at something with full attention for five minutes straight.”

Obviously, I’m not doing all these every day, but regardless of which ones I do by the time it’s all done I can't help but feel a little exhausted. Not physically, at least: Rylee's in good shape and clearly conditioned for all this. Emotionally, though, it can feel weirdly draining to force yourself into these emotional states when you've always been so bottled up.  Unfortunately, I have a whole life to live now so I can’t just hop back into bed for the rest of the day, but Rylee, if you’re reading this, I hope you’re appreciative of all the work I’m doing on your behalf.

…and whoever ends up being me, perhaps, if you could, maybe take up some of those exercises? Apologies if I wasn’t in the greatest shape but, well, guess it wouldn’t hurt to pick some of them up once I’m back in my body…