Just Annette

Maybe I'm not just Annette yet; how can I be, just a week away from having been a man and not really having re-immersed myself in how my life has unfolded without me for the past three years.  Heck, it will probably take me as long to figure out what I want to keep and what I want to discard from Sandra as it will to use the ladies' room without thinking.

I was at the Inn a couple of days before the Chang guys-turned-girls showed up, and for all I was feeling guilty about getting something out of their being blackmailed, I was really glad to see them.  I've talked about how being on my own, Inn-people-wise, had me feeling lonely the past few weeks, and Tyler and his group were looking to be all business.  I guess I understand; they're either older or have kids to deal with, and I'm not going to second-guess folks trying to corral little kids (or people who find themselves mentally in-between).  Plus, I figure I've got a different perspective on OOB than pretty much everyone else:  Where everyone else basically seems to be thinking "let's not get within fifty miles of this place unless I plan to change, just to be sure", Benny grew up here, so I've had to get used to it as a place I'd have to make excuses not to visit, and I've hung out with "friends and family" enough that I know the town as more than where the Inn is.  I didn't see the sense of being shut in until 1am or so.

Not that Max wanted to go near the threshold, though Missy has spent a bunch of time figuring out the rules of the place and building models on her computer, and she's totally not going to act like she doesn't trust them.  But, she's also a good enough brother that she doesn't drag Max up there when there's no point.

(Yeah, I said "she's Max's brother"; it's weird, but she thinks of herself as a woman but also Max's brother, even though he's physically female right now, and you respect that even if it doesn't sound right.)

Cary and Elaine didn't hang out much; we got hot dogs one day but since they're just inches away from Cary being "Mackenzie's" temporary foster dad, they really don't want to do anything hard to explain, like drinking with three really mismatched folks until midnight.

Missy and Max make an odd pair like that right now.  Missy knows the odds of being hot in the same way that she now really enjoys come fall are slim, so she's pushing her boobs up and wearing booty shorts, and would probably be wearing heels if that didn't suck on the beach.  Max is weird, because he looks like Cary did in Chicago, but where Cary would use the times when he was hanging with me to dress down, Elaine had still trained him to be comfortable in women's clothes, so he'd do things like wear leggings as pants or put on a camisole on a warm day, while Max is taking the same body and wearing t-shirts that actually emphasize his breasts more because he's tucking them into pants that are kind of trying to be unisex but kind of can't with Elaine's curves.

He can drink a bit, at least.  I laughed a bit at Missy accepting drinks people sent over for both of them, and getting up to dance a couple of times, though she resisted going home with anybody.  Indeed, after a couple of hours, she was kind of morose about having to break up with Jackie, and then she passed out in the booth.

Then something hit me as I looked at the glasses piled in the center of our table.  "Holy shit, I'm going to be that age, sex, and weight - I mean, last picture I saw of Sandra she looked like she was about the same size as Missy, but I haven't seen them side-by-side because my friend does me the service of hating that bitch - does that mean I'm going to be a complete lightweight as well?"

Max looked at his drink, suddenly wondering if maybe he was having too much.  "Uh, maybe?  But you'll get used to it, right?"

"Oh, sure, but I like beer, damn it!  But, I suppose that I'm going to have to deal with Sandra making everyone think I'm some sort of early-onset-middle-age wine-drinker anyway.  Ugh!"  This doesn't make much sense, I realize, but I had been drinking and being Benjamin didn't make me completely impervious to alcohol.

By now, everyone at the bar had a few drinks in them, and it was making Max uncomfortable, so we decided to get Missy back to their hotel.  Max did think it was pretty funny that I carried her all the way, insisting on getting pictures.  He laughed while doing it and I asked him to let me get one of my own, because he smiled differently than Cary - less teeth, more dimples.  "It's cute.  Don't be afraid of it."

"You being a bro telling a girl to smile?"

"No, and fuck you!  I'm just saying, you go back in the blog and read up on me and Jordan-slash-Deirdre-slash-Missy, you'll see I enjoyed our first year more because I let myself.  Doesn't mean I'm not really excited to be myself again, but it can be a good experience."  I paused, remembering a few of the last few years' more exciting moments.  "A really good experience, when you have an idea of what you're getting into and don't have worry about tomorrow."

I left him with something to think about and then returned to the Inn.  No change that night, but when we met up the next day, Max was wearing a tank-top and Missy wanted to know what I'd said to him.

I fell asleep reading the night the actual change took place, and while there were obvious, tell-tale signs that the years as a guy had passed, it was hard not to have the feeling that it had all been a dream when I looked in the mirror - what I was seeing was disconnected from my most recent experiences, but so intensely familiar as to override that.  Not entirely, though; there was a lot that demand exploration.  Sandra had left me with the shortest haircut I've had a a girl since third grade, but I liked it; it looked cute and mature at the same time.  I don't know whether eagerly unbottoning my pajama top was a leftover guy thing or just being excited to see my new-old shape, but I had to laugh when the first thing I noticed about my breasts was the tan lines.  I guess Sandra was more into walking around the beach in a bikini or going to pool parties, at least in the time leading up to her visit to the Inn, than I was as a bookish teenager.  She'd had her belly-button pierced, too, although she didn't leave me anything to put in there.  I wondered if it was something she had as Sandra or if it was just a young-again experience she didn't feel like sharing.

Getting dressed was like riding a bike - I hadn't had to fiddle with my own bra for years, but my fingers knew the motions; same with getting clips in my hair.  Sandra left me the belly for a crop-top, and any worries that I'd look weird in the mirror were gone quickly, even after I put my glasses on (I must admit, I didn't miss needing those, but I still kind of like the look).

I called the Changs once I was all set and we agreed to meet up at Cary's truck.  Missy recognized me instantly and have me a big hug, telling me I was super-cute and saying we had to be best girlfriends for the next month.  Max seemed to have a hard time believing I had been Benjamin just the day before, but I told him to keep his chin up, because it really does all come back.

We had a fun time hanging out that day, going to the amusement park and then having beers on the beach.  I got carded for the first time in months while it dawned on Max that he didn't because he and his big brother had essentially swapped ages.  I was tempted to stay another night but also really wanted to go home for the first time in two years.

I hugged my mom so hard the next morning.  I would have done it the night before, but she was already in bed when I got to her house and cried a little to find my bedroom just like I left it; I guess Sandra never really settled in and made it hers even after that first year, preferring to spend most of the summer at her (now my) apartment in Cambridge.  Mom wanted to know what was with this sudden bout of homesickness, but didn't really press too hard, kind of just happy to have her daughter home unexpectedly.  I pulled together a story about breaking up with a boy that had a little bit of me leaving Marybeth and a little bit of me not being Benjamin anymore in it, and it probably made no sense, but Mom said encouraging things about being true to yourself that I probably could have used a lot over the last three years.

Seeing my friends from high school was a bit rougher.  Missy told me not to expect too much, because even folks who haven't been through what we have drift apart naturally when not seeing each other every day, and on top of that I guess Sandra didn't really connect with a lot of people she considered kids, so they look at me and think going to a big school ha given me a swelled head.  It's sucked the most with Gretchen, because she was my very best friend since we were like ten, and the fact that Sandra was apparently right about her boyfriend two years ago does not make up for the way she shared her opinion.

We're reconnecting, though, and through Gretchen I'm getting a bit closer to everyone else while also re-reading every textbook and assignment Sandra did as me after we stopped splitting the work because she stole my life and was therefore on her own.  It's kind of tough - she switched her focus from creative writing to journalism.  It's not really my dream, but I have to remember that it's part of how Arthur Milligan became author Penny Lincoln, and I can follow that path.

It's a lot of work to be "just Annette" again, even without considering meeting my new-to-me roommate's and classmates, so I'm afraid I'm not going to have time to be Missy's gal pal.  Maybe that will still be an option next month, though - we're both living proof that the Inn doesn't always (permanently) ruin your life!

-Annette

Annette/Benjamin: And to think I've had my eye on a ring

I talk with Missy a lot these days, sometimes, I think, more than I did when we were sharing an apartment.  We both feel like we need someone who gets us, even though it seems like we should have it.  He's got Max in the next room, but I don't know what their deal is, exactly; I don't think they were the closest brothers you would find, and now Max getting what he wants and deserves means Missy had to give up a life that makes her happy.  It's tense, but Max feels just guilty enough that she tries to reduce the tension, and I like her, but reducing tension isn't what Missy does best.

Meanwhile, ever since Cary and Elaine went back to Maine, I've kind of been on my own here.  I'm sure there are other Inn people in the Chicago area - it's a large enough city - but I don't know any of them, and while it should help me to just be Benjamin, it mostly makes me feel alone.  I know it's what a lot of people who have visited the Inn go through, and I don't envy them.

It's made me a bad boyfriend at times.  More often than not, lately.  When you're doing this with other people, it's not really a game, but you can blow off steam about the things in your life that aren't as they should be, and even when that just involves someone telling you that you've got to put the idea of "should be" out of your head, that's something.  Now, when I get laid off from a job I don't even really like, I'm just angry, and I try not to take it out on Marybeth, but what's the point of being in a relationship if you can't share your frustrations, even if you can't fully share them?

It came to a bit of a head about a month ago when a text came in from Missy at a terrible time, and what she could see on the screen said not too be frustrated, and she wanted to know what I could tell "my ex" (the history we inherit!) that I couldn't tell her.  Which is a fair question in, like, 99% of all relationships, but in mine, one I couldn't answer.

So things got uncomfortable, and I feel awful, because I do love Marybeth and I really don't want to be the selfish guy who acts like his girlfriend's career should come below his annoyance, and it feels like it's going that way.  I'm trying to think of ways that I can not be that guy, that I can show her just how much she means to me, and then I'm walking past the jeweler's and an engagement ring captures my eye.

It's a nice one, especially considering it's also one I might be able to afford.  It's not a diamond, because those are stupidly expensive and I actually did some research into how stupid their being expensive is as a project in high school, because the cartel keeps supply artificially limited and what diamonds are being mined are often being done under terrible conditions.  But they make some nice engagement rings with colored gems now, because there are a lot of young people with that sort of mindset, and I liked the red one I found.  I don't know how traditional Marybeth is with these things, but I thought about how I would have thought a guy getting me that sort of ring would be a cool combination of ethical and practical.  I'd gone back to see it three times before Missy sent that email with the video of Carlotta changing into Max.

It was a punch in the gut, because I like Max, and thought him dating Missy's best friend was kind of cool, but when I saw that I was the BCC on the email, and it was primarily sent to Sandra I felt this overpowering tension, wondering how I was going to sleep until I found out how she was going to respond to this, because if she decided she wanted her life back, then mine was in play, and I texted Missy back not to get my hopes up like that without thinking.

And that was it, wasn't it?  I wanted my old life back.  I could try to deny it, try to convince myself that I wasn't dealing with some really deep-seated lack of satisfaction with the life I had by proposing to Marybeth, and maybe she'd say yes and maybe we'd be happy.  That's the thing about our relationship, at least from my point of view - as much as I genuinely like her, I know that part of what initially attracted me to her was that she was like me, or at least the me that I wanted to be, and I'll probably never know how much is me wanting her and how much is me wanting a proxy.

I probably was more annoying than usual over the next few days, and then Sandra responded, saying that as much as being Annette was great and she maybe had a great future, the idea that her husband had been targeted by Carlotta, and had been living with someone like this for a couple of years, changed a lot.  She somehow managed to get that room reserved for the next week, and then reached out to me...

I don't want to write about the breakup.  It was hard and it sucked and I was so tempted to not do it at all, figuring that maybe the next Benny could use someone like Marybeth in her life, but then I thought about how I'd feel if a boyfriend was just going to hand me off to a stranger, and I felt sick.  So I said like a dozen variations on how it wasn't her, but it was me, and the move without me having my own thing was making me crazy, and I felt like it was time to head back home to, like, recharge my batteries or some ridiculous thing.  I was really determined that she not feel like any sort of loser, but I also didn't want any room for being talked out of it, because I probably could be.  I was giving up on two challenges by dumping her when it got hard, and I don't want to be the sort of person who does that.

But I got through it, and now I'm in Maine, feeling like a failure rather than excited like I should be.  I haven't worked up the nerve to visit Cary and Elaine yet, although I probably will when Missy and Max come up tomorrow, to help give this version of me a good send-off.  It's going to be tough to face Missy, but I think I owe it to her, as its her misfortune that is giving me this chance, and she is not being any sort of jerk about it, which she probably has every right to be.

But, hey, I could already be myself again by the time I see her.  There's no tingle now, but who knows if that always happens?

-Annette/Benjamin

Annette/Benjamin: Windy City Life

Four months in Chicago today, and in some ways it's been weirder for me than some of my past big moves because I'm not used to the continuity.  New York and Boston came with changing axes and ethnicities and orientations, meant catching up on who my new identity's friends and family were, and otherwise just jumping into a situation that required a lot of catch-up.

This didn't.  Marybeth was here waiting for me, I still know who everyone in my phone is, and I came here at lose ends rather than trying to catch up.  It doesn't leave me with that much free time - I still needed to find a job, help get everything settled in place after the move, all that - but a different question.  In New York and Boston, I was trying to figure out how to adapt myself to Ravi's and Benny's lives, and here in trying to figure out how to adapt my life to new circumstances.  I wonder if it would be easier if I'd done this before, like if Mom and I had moved when I was old enough to remember it or if I'd been able to move into a dorm room as myself three years ago.

It's getting easier, though, and I may have it better than a lot of guys moving halfway across the country for their girlfriends' jobs.  I don't think anybody consists me particularly feminine, but I'm pretty cool with a living room that isn't built around the big TV and video game system, decoration that involves a lot of plants, that sort of thing.  My shifts at an office-supply store are just offset enough from Marybeth's hours that were not fighting over the bathroom or always on our own.

I'm missing Cary already, though.  Even though he doesn't look old enough to grump about Millennials as Elaine, I can always tell from talking to him that were part of the same secret club, and on top of that, both of us being Mainers, and, beyond that, both spending a fair amount of non-Inn time in Old Orchard over the past few years (mostly brief visits to Benny's family for me).  It's also really fun to watch him and Elaine together; it looks like a kid who has her patents well-trained, even though her demeanor in no way matches her form.  She also knows all the best places to eat.

Marybeth is, understandably, a little uncertain about my first non-her friendship here being with an attractive woman with whom I don't have very much in common with, if you go by cover story.  It's even weirder to her, when we met up with "Elaine" without "Mackenzie", that they don't get along that all.  They've got a lot of the same taste in clothes, Marybeth loves the song that serves as ringtone on Elaine's phone, and they even go to the same gym on occasion.  That they seem to have so much in common, but "Elaine" gets on so much better than me, gets her a bit nervous, especially since I still keep in touch with Missy.

I'm making guy friends slowly but surely, though; there's a couple folks at work who figure we're bros because the same general manager got both our baseball teams World Series championships, which seems like the dumbest thing to bond over, but it's something.  One of Marybeth's co-workers has a boyfriend who seems like he'd be a really fun trivia-team member.  And who knows, maybe when Elaine comes back herself, she and Marybeth will click, Elaine will find a boyfriend who can make it not weird if we do couples stuff together.

-Annette/Benjamin

Annette/Benjamin: Good news?

I wish that the title of this entry referred to finding a publisher for my first novel - I've been quiet here for the past few months because I wanted to focus all my writing energy on that, but it's just getting started going through slush piles and the like.  I'm expecting a lot of rejections, but hopefully some will come with advice.

No, the good news is that after half a year of temping, contact work, and going on interview after interview, Marybeth has found a job!  It is, I think, the sort of job I'd have hoped to land if I had gone to Harvard and graduated with a degree in English, an assistant editor at a small but growing publishing house, which is getting a little extra attention thanks to some celebrity or other mentioning one of their books in an interview.  

It's great!

It's also in Chicago.

I was kind of prepared for Marybeth's job hunt leading her, and us, out of Boston; there are publishers and academic jobs here, but also a lot of grads looking for them.  In fact, I was kind of looking forward to moving back to New York if that's where it took us.  Nobody there remembers me aside from Benny/Jordan, which would have been a very weird thing on its own, sure, but there are a lot of places and things I'd like to make my places again. 

I've heard a lot of nice things about Chicago, too, although admittedly not so much from Cary.  He's kind of got his own reasons for not really loving the experience, but every once in a while he mentions a nice restaurant that Elaine introduced him to, or that going to Wrigley and the Cubs' victory parade was cool.  

Again, if I got into Marybeth's position, which was my goal before that second visit to the Inn, I'd probably be super excited to get an exciting new job in a big new city, especially if I got to hang around with someone I liked as much as I like Marybeth.

But that's the thing I can't avoid thinking about right now - it's not my life, and it's never going to be.  It's hers, and while I haven't just been with her in order to live vicariously, I do feel pangs of envy.  I could be on my way to doing this, but because some bitch decided that stealing one person's life wasn't enough (and another decided to follow suit), I'm a guy bussing tables in a burger bar, crossing my fingers that when the new location opens, I might get a promotion to full manager.  I was going to be a smart, respected woman, and now...

Well, that's what made the conversation when Marybeth got the job kind of weird for her as much as me.  I'm the one with the penis, but there are a lot of times when it doesn't seem like I'm the guy in the relationship with Marybeth.  I am well aware of how stupid and nineteenth-century it sounds, but there are a lot of ways in which the world is set up so that a good-looking guy who nevertheless hasn't personally achieved as much as his girlfriend is considered kind of pathetic in a way that isn't the case for a woman when you flip the situation around.  I generally don't feel that way, but I get some comments, and Marybeth gets a lot (Christmas at her place, with her parents, was a bonanza for both of us).  It's a weird thing, like guys who are already physically bigger and advantaged in society will somehow be looked down upon if they choose to be with a woman a couple years older or who outshines them in any way other than attractiveness, which is just stupidly weak.  It makes no sense!

But it's part of how the world works, and it meant that when she was telling me that she got this offer, I could see in her head that while she wasn't just going to let her boyfriend veto it as a matter of course, she seemed at least a little unsure of whether asking me to move with her was too much to ask.  I'm not saying every guy would just say yes immediately and then basically inform his girlfriend that they were moving, but a lot more would, and I think that Marybeth was bracing herself for a breakup in case I felt she was overstepping her bounds by even considering it.

I admit, I wasn't quite as immediate and enthusiastic with the "that's fantastic, and of course I'll come to Chicago with you!" as the perfect boyfriend would have been.  It wasn't really about male ego (I'm not entirely sure I've got one of those yet), as much as a brief flash of resentment that, once again, someone else's actions were going to make me drop whatever life I'd built and had to a new city and start all over again.  It wouldn't be a complete reset to zero like another trip to the Inn would be, but it's exhausting, and I feel like I've just gotten settled in.

She saw that, and started back-pedaling, and I immediately felt like shit, promising her that I'd follow her anywhere, and meaning it.  I love this woman and would really hate the idea of her selling herself short for me,  and I've spent the past few days trying to make sure she understands it.

And this morning, I happily went to the airport with her, sincerely telling her that I would trust her implicitly as she does the apartment hunting there while I work my last few shifts after giving my two weeks' notice, spending the rest of the time packing up the apartment so that I can rent a van and drive or stuff halfway across the country. 

I'm just hoping, that while I get all this done, that Marybeth's absence doesn't make me question the decision.  It's easy to uproot oneself when you're looking the person you love in the eyes, a bit less so when you've just called to break the news to someone like Missy who had been your friend and partner in weirdness for two years and two lives.

-Annette/Benjamin

Annette/Benjamin: Moving Up and In

As much as I understand why so many people move during the last week of August and first week of September in Boston, and I'm glad to lend a hand, it's kind of exhausting, and the really unfair part is that my own move was not that taxing - I felt pretty comfortable making Allston Christmas presents out of anything that dated to before I took over this life, and I could only buy so many books on my salary overt the past year, even with Marybeth using an employee discount.  They're heavy, but I'm a reasonably buff guy, so I could get them to Marybeth's place via the subway.

It's kind of a big step moving in together, I guess, but we spend most of our free time together anyway, and we each had enough roommates moving out that it just made sense to consolidate.  The rent is a little bit higher than she's comfortable with, as most of her job offers have been for unpaid internships, which is kind of crap - six years of school and racking up loans, and now places expect her to work for free?  She's trying to hold out for places that will pay her actual money, but the competition for even the internships is fierce in this area.

The upside is that we've got a little more time to be together now; applying for work and going on interviews is not quite a full-time job, and even since we're both mostly working evenings now, we get a lot more time to hang out in the daytime, which is pretty cool.  Dating is normally something you do "after", but doing it "before" is actually pretty cool if you can swing it.  Aside from the savings of matinee-priced movies and ordering lunch specials rather than dinners, you can make a day of walking and talking in museums, tag along with tourists on the sort of sightseeing outings that locals don't do much.  There's less dancing and it's harder to end a date with the sex, but we're pretty creative in finding watts to fit it in.

We probably won't need to be quite so budget-conscious when she lands a job, though.  Right now, we're doing okay; I've actually been promoted to assistant manager at work, which during the evening shift still involves clearing tables and filling in for anybody who is sick or late, signing for the occasional delivery, and counting the registers at the end of the night.  It's not that much more money or responsibility, but it's not nothing, and it will look good on the résumé when I do try to do something a little more ambitious.

There has been a little tension over me getting a promotion while Marybeth is still looking for work, though.  She didn't resent it, really, but she didn't expect to still be at the bookstore four months after graduation, and me inching forward woke she's staying in place is a bit rough on her.  It's those moments where I wish I was more experienced in certain ways, that I really was a 25-year-old guy who had been getting used to the roller-coaster ride that is dating women for the past ten years.  I feel like Benny would know the right thing to say, rather than have to think about it, and by the very process of pausing give Marybeth a moment to wonder if I'm the right guy for her.

Don't get me wrong, she's not resenting me most of the time or anything; we still have a lot of fun and I think that most of the time, I'm good at making her feel better.  If nothing else, I'm utterly sincere in giving her a thumbs-up when she presents the day's cute interview outfit (which she does even if she's just interviewing via Skype).  It's funny - after two years as a guy, I'd kind of stopped giving much thought to how specific a woman's wardrobe can be.  We're pretty causal with each other most of the time, but sometimes we'll go or someplace nice and she'll break out a skirt, stockings, and heels, but it's not really the same ensemble that she wears for an interview, or at least, the top she wears and the way she does her makeup wears her hair makes a big difference.  I feel little pangs of envy even as I feel incredibly lucky watching her; I know all this is kind of a nuisance or expensive, but I used to kind of look like Marybeth, and I could be doing that rather than just choosing between jeans and dress pants.

Still, I'm getting the benefit of being around it, and a number of guy friends have pointed out that this does not suck at all.  I'm really pulling for something to come together soon, because my girl deserves it.

-Benjamin/Annette (you end a post with "my girl deserves it", you're a guy first that day)

Annette/Benjamin: Graduation Parties

I've been to a couple of them in the past few weeks, and I can't say it's not kind of tough.  Sure, when I look at what Jonah is staring down, the fact that I'm skipping college seems like small potatoes - by the time he gives birth and goes back to the Inn next summer, he'll have missed his last couple years of high school, and who knows how that particular experience will change him - but I worked so hard to get there, and now I'm the townie boyfriend in the audience whom everybody thinks that Marybeth is going to eventually outgrow and leave behind.

It's a pretty tough pill to swallow, at times.  I mean, I'm proud as heck of her - her Master's is no small accomplishment, and I've got no idea whether I would have had the patience for it.  She lit up as she accepted her diploma and then, afterwards, jumped into my arms when she and all her friends finished giving each other high-fives.  We kissed for a long time, and it was a really blissful kiss - I slowly eased her to the ground, and it felt like a portion of her satisfaction and success flowed into me.  I never had that with boyfriends in high school or the ones I had as Ravi in New York, and I wonder if that's what being in love, really in love, as a grown-up feels like.

We had to come up for air eventually, and that's when she dragged me over to meet her parents.  They seem like nice folks, although I'm not sure exactly what she had told them about me and what they've assumed.  They're in their mid-fifties and Marybeth is their only child, so they were looking askance at me to begin with, and I don't know if I quite made the best first impression.

I've at least learned to navigate the whole "firm handshake" thing; the line between showing that you are a dependable person of some substance and turning it into a test-of-strength battle for dominance is a lot thinner than you may expect!  Her dad was strong but kind of recreationally strong, like he goes out and does physical things but wears custom gloves when he does it to protect his hands. He sized me up too and asked what I was studying.

I could hear Marybeth going "uh..." beside me, but I just smiled and said "same things as your daughter, just without so much institutional support and formal direction." He gave me a look that said he had it half figured out but wasn't quite there, but wanted me to say the thing that made me look bad. "I bus tables, sir, but I read and write a lot, and I hope to make a career of it someday."

He wasn't sure how to react to that, although Marybeth's mom looked at her daughter mock-seriously and asked why she hadn't said that was an option - they could have had a house on the lake! Everyone laughed at that, and her quizzing me on what sort of experiences I'd be able to bring to my writing outside of ivory-tower twenties was kind of fun. I obviously couldn't say ''well, I was a gay Indian man for a year", but I could string together just enough of my real life, Benny's, and the year that Ronan lived this life to make it sound interesting,

It was an exhausting but enlightening afternoon, and the party that night with Marybeth's classmates was a good way to blow off steam. I didn't drink quite as much as I might have last year - I'm no longer a kid excited that I can get a beer just by asking for it, and I've gotten pretty decent about just drinking enough to take the edge off in awkward social situations rather than obliterating it. Which was good; as much as I felt kind of needled that day, seeing her parents was kind of stressful for Marybeth as well, and we engaged in some terrific tension relief when we got back to her place that night. It would have sucked to be too out of it for that.

Then, the next morning, we woke up in each other's arms. I kissed her and asked what it was like for her to be both that much more overqualified for her job and that much too good for the likes of me, and she laughed before saying that it was pretty awesome, although if I keep it up with the uncanny instincts about what a girl likes, the second part will stay debatable. And as to the first, well, that's just a matter of stepping up her résumé-writing/sending game, because her student loans have officially become a ticking time bomb.

The other party wasn't really for anybody I knew, but sometimes being an "Inn Person" doesn't just mean that life dealt you an unfair supernatural hand, but that you are part of a community of people who are so much more than they seem at first glance. That I wound up in Boston makes me especially lucky in that regard; being kind of near the Inn means that there are enough other people around who have been through the same thing that your support system is not just your roommate, with whom you now likely have an even more complicated relationship. There's The Changeling, and while Ashlyn, Penny, and everyone else may be a little reluctant to immediately welcome anyone who posts on the blog or says that they've been to the Trading Post with open arms - "Pygmalion" and a number of other incidents (like how Penny is Penny rather than Arthur) have reminded them that being in the same boat doesn't mean people want to steer it the same way - the connection is wonderful.

This second party was kind of a delayed affair, as Jessica Brooks was going to law school out in California, but she still wanted to celebrate with her Inn family who know that she used to be a middle-aged cop in Baltimore, and making it here was about finding her new self as much as anything else.

She wasn't the first to arrive, though - Jonah had just finished a day shift, and didn't protest too much when I hugged her, or when Penny arrived and told her that, even though being pregnant was obviously something that, having been born a man, he wasn't prepared for, it would be amazing, changing the way he saw the world for the better. I felt a bit of a twinge - I'd never really given much thought to having children beyond it being part of some vague future but something to take precautions against for right now, but now it was an entirely different potential thing.

Soon Penny was there, and despite what she's told me before, I was still kind of surprised to be introduced to Elizabeth Kim. She read that on my face and smiled at it, saying that she was obviously still one of the villains of Penny's story when she stopped writing, but, of course, nobody is the bad guy in her own, although it took her a while to really comprehend what sort of selfish choices she had made at times and how, sometimes, you need to change your whole way of thinking. It was an interesting conversation, although I don't know if I buy it as it relates to me and Sandra.

The next person I was introduced to was Louisa Torrence, and I did kind of fangirl out meeting her, which looks funny coming from a working-class guy. I told her that when I thought that the whole blog was a piece of fiction that Penny (and others) were writing, she was one of my favorite characters because she reminded me of my mom in a couple of ways and just seemed so empathetic and genuine, and to find out she was a real person... Well, you get it. She reacted to that sort of thing about as well as she could and caught me up on what she'd been up to, and, as she put it, a bunch of other "dangling plot threads". As she said, it's not dangerous for "Marie Desjardins"in Montreal any more; the gangster boyfriend was in jail and the original Ashlyn had enough influence to keep people off her back. She's back to being a librarian again, and kind of loving it - she makes sure that she sets to work in both French and English, and the classes in library science she took (because while someone her actual age would be able to list experience but "Marie" needs to be a specialist) help her keep her mind sharp. She says she probably doesn't need to worry about senior moments, but it seems to vary for everyone. She hopes and thinks that because she dropped thirty years before her brain started to deteriorate, she's probably got the mental acuity of someone her apparent age, but that the Inn won't necessarily fix what's already brown up there.

Which, she joked, could have applied just as much to the guest of honor as anyone else, as Jessica Brooks had been a veteran cop before the Inn made him a pre-teen girl who has, in the years since, made it to adulthood, graduated college, and then finished law school out in California, which had to put her near retirement age, old enough to be my father (and then some) if we had never visited the Inn, but physically maybe a couple of years older than I look right now.  She arrived with an entourage - the road trip she and Louisa took eight years ago had led her to Dana Costello, the guy who started life as Jessica, and his best-friend's-father-turned-mother Parker (mother of Dana, not the friend, because she was now Dana's adult husband because sometimes the Inn really fucks families up), and the whole group sort of arrived together - Jessica & Kathleen Brooks and Dana & Parker & Carson & Phuong Costello.

They weren't how I'd pictured them, obviously; though my binge-reading of the blog happened within the last couple of years, the posts which introduced me to them were from 2007, so it was a bit jarring to see Jessica, Dana, and Phuong as adults in their mid-twenties, Carson as a confident middle-aged man, and Parker and Kathleen as, I don't know, the veteran moms?  You know, folks who buckled down to be parents in tough situations while still trying to do their own things, probably don't get enough credit for either, and now look at each other and know they kicked ass even if guys are just counting ways they don't look like swimsuit models.

It got loud quickly, and though I've been welcomed into the Boston group of Inn people, I'm admittedly an outsider with this collection.  Still, when I reached out to shake Jessica's hand and noticed the ring my eyebrows went up a bit.  I asked who the lucky guy was, and she nodded toward Dana.

I squealed, which is probably kind of scary coming out of someone who looks like I do, but she laughed, saying that for a moment, she could totally see the teenage girl whose fanfic had just actually happened underneath the mid-twenties male exterior.  I blushed, but nobody noticed, as they were all too busy congratulating the happy couple.  As soon as that died down, Ashlyn handed Penny a twenty, and Dana looked genuinely shocked.  "Really?  You guys were betting on this?"

Ray said that of course they were betting on it, what with them being the most hot and cold couple they've ever seen, and that's before getting into the Inn stuff.  I guess it must be kind of crazy dating someone who sort of used to be you.  "You've got no idea!" Dana said.  "But compared to watching her date losers that I never would have gone near..."

"I have never dated a loser!  Do you have any idea how high the standards someone who's secretly thirty years older than the kids who look age-appropriate are?  You're the most immature person I've ever dated, by far, in two lifetimes!"

"Oh, not the 'two lifetimes' thing!  You promised that treating me like a kid was over, because you know what this life is like and how it doesn't work if you don't trust me--"

"AFTER we're married--"

"Hey!"  Kathleen just needed one word to quiet them down as she put her hands on my and Jonah's shoulders.  "You're scaring the kids!"  They apologized to us, and the whole crowd laughed.  Ashlyn was grinning the biggest.

"This is why Penny and I had money on the two of them winding up together.  Their fights are legendary, even if they were missing something before Dana applied to the police academy."

"Which is still the most god-damn foolish mmmmph!"

Dana had put his hand over Jessica's mouth, but I guess this was a thing with them, as she quickly pulled it down, kissed him, and had the whole thing sort of turn into him embracing him from behind.  "See what I'm signing up for?"

"You love it!"  He kissed her (it was kind of a good thing she was wearing heels, because he has about a foot on her), and squeezed.  "Yeah, we fight, because we both think we know what's best for each other and broadly have a better claim than most couples.  But, let me tell you, I can't imagine my life without those fights, and when I realized that she might actually move away after graduating, and I'd have to argue with her over the internet--"

"Seriously, we weren't together two months ago, but when this goofball got down on one knee, that seemed absurd."

There was a big round of "awwwww!!!", maybe with me the loudest despite knowing them for about ten minutes.

After that, it sort of became a regular party, and it was a lot of fun.  I really found myself liking Dana; I gather that when Louisa and Jessica met her, she was really a guy's guy, but maybe it's just knowing the truth or his having spent more time with other folks who have been through the change, since it certainly feels like we've got common ground as men who used to be girls.  For insurance, he really enjoyed choosing a ring for Jessica, even as his friends broke into cops sweats.  Got some Taylor Swift on his phone, too.

Later in the night, I asked Penny if she'd bet on Jessica and Dana getting together randomly,  and she said it was because she and Ray had worked out.  I mentioned that I worried about things with Marybeth sometimes, because there was something I was holding back.  She said not to worry, because she's seen a lot of cases where it had worked out with people who couldn't know.

"So are you and Ashlyn being on me now?"

She smiled and said that if they were, it would probably be about me and Missy, chuckling when I said there was no chance of that.

I think she's just messing with me.  She's better be.

-Annette/Benjamin

Annette/Benjamin: Sports

It's been a while since I wrote here, but that's mainly because things are going well but not off-the-charts, this-requires-examination well. I mean, it is in some ways - I've got my favorite writer helping me with what I'm working on outside the blog, although I'm not going to mention her name too often lest Google start sending her fans here which leads to another me winding up someone else - but mostly I'm a happy guy for kind of prosaic reasons.  I've got a smart, sexy girlfriend in Marybeth who shares a lot of common interests; I've got good friends who are also doing well; my job isn't great, but it gives me a fair amount of free time, plus it exists, which not everybody can say.  Being Benjamin is good right now, and I feel like I'm handling all the guy stuff quite well.

And the Red Sox just beat the Yankees to pull into first place, which is actually something I care about. I don't think it's a matter of following sports automatically being more appealling because I've got a penis, so much as I'm living with a bunch of guys, and they've been trained to follow the local teams since birth, and it's a very easy thing to pick up. After all, it's fun!  Especially during baseball season, there's a game practically every night that is only predictable in the very vaguest sense, and the stuff which makes it hard to predict is people doing things that are really difficult. I still haven't gotten into football beyond sort of rooting for Tom Brady in his battle with Roger Goodell the same way I would in a story (even when I'm not working Sundays in the winter, there are better things to do with a weekend afternoon), but I am following the Bruins, Celtics, and Red Sox way closer than I ever expected to.

I'm playing more, too. Nothing really organized, but when someone asks if I want to go out and shoot some hoops, I say yes a lot. I almost wonder at times if an affinity for that sort of physical activity and competition is like sexuality - we naturally spend a lot of time on this blog talking about suddenly being attracted to a new opposite sex because our brains have been rewired, and Missy often mentions to me how, even though she will find herself drawn to guys in the same room, she still likes looking at pictures of naked girls more (and I do sometimes look around during movies to see if anybody has noticed me raising my eyebrows when a guy takes his shirt off). But I know Benny was a real jock as a kid - when I went to see his folks over Christmas, there were a lot of trophies in his room - and I wasn't. Oh, sure, I jogged, because I didn't quite have the Rory Gilmore metabolism and (as Missy is discovering) it is not cool at all to be called fat as a young woman, but it didn't feel good the way it does now.

I actually got curious enough about this to email Benny/Jordan the other week.  He's not as obsessively self-examining as some of us, so he hadn't really thought about it, but he says he still enjoys working out even if it's not quite the endorphin-releasing high it was any more, but more the satisfaction of a job well-done. He's got more interests now, although he kind of chalked that up to being with Kareena and picking up what she likes.

It's a little alarming, in some ways; most of the time, most of us like to think of ourselves as the same people in new containers, which may just have different biological imperatives, but if this newfound excitement about the local teams also comes with the change, it really makes me think a bit about just who I am now,

- Annette / Benjamin

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: We made a movie!

It's not a feature or anything, and I don't really know what it will look like when all the past-production stuff is done, but that thing Ernesto asked me to work on was actually a ton of fun!

I have to admit, I was kind of thinking of backing out.  Ernesto is the first guy I've fucked where I would be seeing him again whether I liked it or not, and based upon how hook-ups with people I know went for me in my original life - usually terrible, both during and after - I want sure that spending that much time with him was something I wanted to do, especially since that last week or two of fall term was uncomfortable.  That time in Hong Kong was a good reset, though - the fun pays were crazy and intense enough to make me certain that I could handle anything friggin' Boston could throw at me, and the scary parts...  Well, shit, what's hanging out with a guy you've had sex with compared to that?

It was a fun thing to bring to life. Ernesto had written a script about a guy and a girl on a date that's not going well, so as things go on, Ernesto (he played the leading man) starts to see me as some sort of vampire succubus and I start to see him as a zombie.  Something seemed a bit off about it to me at first, so I asked Benjamin to take a look at it, and he said that the cynicism was too simple, that we should still see each other as tempting and desirable. We could still wind up fighting, but it would be more interesting.

Ernesto wound up liking the idea, although the director took some convincing, telling him something about not letting his little head do the thinking. Ernesto and Cesar have been friends since they were kids and I get the impression that I'm not the first girl whose opinions he's dismissed, especially when they arrived via Ernesto. That this advice was coming from a girl who used to be a man after consulting with a man who used to be a girl would probably melt his brain.

Once we got Cesar onboard, it was a lot of fun. Really hard work, though in a completely different way from the play:  Where that was a nerve-wracking marathon for me even though my part was tiny, this was an often-frustrating series of long nights and weekends and afternoons when enough of us didn't have class, doing the same thing until Cesar thought it was good enough, then doing it from another angle. Then, the next day, we do it with one or both of us wearing prosthetic makeup, then switch it up. There are folks on set making sure that all the little details match from day to day, right down to how tight the corset I had stupidly agreed to wear when I was supposed to be a complete sex demon by the end was.

I kind of loved it.

I fucking get the whole deal where you run something, get the bugs out when it fails, and then run it again. And the tech was so much damn fun - one of the producers somehow got a Red camera on loan, and while that made the shoot really tight - along with basically only being able to shoot the restaurant scenes from nine to midnight and the other restrictions - We could only shoot the restaurant scenes from nine to midnight along with other restrictions - it was amazing how good everything looked.

There's still a lot more work to do - Cesar and Ernesto are still editing a month or so later, someone's writing a score, and I've used some of Yuan-wei's money to buy a pretty killer graphics workstation so that we can add some more blood to a few scenes. I usually hate CGI blood, but it's kind of fun to work on, and apparently restaurant owners' charity only goes so far, and they don't like arterial spray all over the place.

Hopefully I can get that finished soon - Cesar was kind of upset that I didn't get it done by spring break, and now Ernesto is already teasing me about how Cesar's going to want to oversee the rest of the effects work personally, and use my new machine to work on the editing, saying he'd have to keep an eye on me to make sure I didn't fuck my way into a bigger role.  Not really bitter, but kind of poking at me to see just how much my brain runs in that direction.

Or maybe jealous.  Kind of neat, that.

-Jordo/Missy/Yuan-wei

Annette/Benjamin: Me Being a Total Fangirl

A new Star Wars movie came out a couple weeks ago; perhaps you heard about it?  I sure did, living in an apartment full of guys in their mid-twenties. And, hey, I wasn't immune; I dig Star Wars even if I was still able to recognize that Amidala just dying of a broken heart in Revenge of the Sith was some bullshit (yes, old people, I was a little girl when the prequels came out and loved Padme the way you loved Han Solo; deal with it).  I hit that over the weekend with Missy and we had a blast.

Still, the really big media release for me that week was Penny Lincoln-Kim's new novel, Pygmalion's Proposal. If you've been reading the blog since I got here, you might remember that being a fan of her first two books in the series, as well as her Lynn Ashford mysteries, is what got me to book a room at the Trading Past Inn, leading to me becoming Ravi, Sandra becoming me, and everything else that got me to this moment. They're pretty great books, set in a future where mind-exchanges are possible but top-secret, with the super-rich stealing the bodies of teenagers. Usually it's done right before death, but one survived, and although he or she can't switch again, this mystery person is doing the same, matching the minds of kids with certain aptitudes with suitable bodies, the "Pygmalion" of the title. It's great stuff if you're a teen, about how the previous generation is wrecking the world for us, imposing their pop culture with an endless series of remakes, sequels, and reboots, as well as the sensation of having to set used to your changing body.  Once you learn about the Inn first-hand, what Arthur-Liz-Penny and her friends went through, etc., it's got new levels.

It's also written with teenage girls as the target audience, which was cool when I was one, but I kind of stick out like a sore thumb at Penny's signings now.  Sandra would blend, but it didn't look like she read my copies and became a fan. I guess I should be grateful for that; even with the event moved from the store to a local theater to accumulate the crowd, running into her would have been awkward enough to put a damper on things.

Moving the signing away from the store unfortunately meant I wouldn't get to see Marybeth until later; she had pulled an evening shift and would be there until the shop closed at 11pm (the bookstore being open later than most restaurants is just the most Harvard Square thing imaginable).  That was okay, in a way, because it meant I didn't have to explain Jonah/Krystle to my girlfriend. She's met Missy, but a girl with the figure Jonah inherited who has an actual stripper name even when she's not stripping... Well, I know I wouldn't have liked it!

Jonah and I had texted and chatted online since he showed up at my place looking for help at the start of November, although I've held off mentioning him until he said it was okay and started contributing to the blog himself. It's a little tougher to say "himself" now - he still favors shapeless sweatshirts when not at work to minimize his curvy figure, but he's responded to the pressure to wear make-up when there, as well as pulling shoes with an inch or two of heel out of Krystle's stock so that he is not quite so towered-over (he's actually a bit taller than Missy, but he'd just hit a growth spurt before going to the Inn, so he's sensitive about height). The big change is the hair; Krystle had grown it long and had it "relaxed" as a rule, but it naturally grew in curly, so sometime in the last month he had all the straight stuff cut off and now has a couple inches of afro. I think the idea was to look a little less feminine, and maybe it does in his head, but it also shows off his slender neck, and any earrings he might be wearing. I like it, at least.

We grabbed seats next to each other and chatted a bit before the reading. He had brought one of the mystery novels, not being much of a sci-fi/fantasy fan. He was clearly uncomfortable in the crowd, especially when someone moving to an inside seat made sure that squeezing through meant he brushed against Jonah's breast (kind of don't miss that), and always brought his voice down real low when discussing anything Inn-related. I kind of get the impression that he hadn't spent much time unsupervised before the Inn made him an adult, and even after four months, he still feels like there's someone watching who will scold him if he screws up, even beyond however much being religious has you thinking that way.

The actual reading started just a few minutes late, and I got really excited as the guest of honor came out on stage. The book was supposed to come out a few months ago, but got delayed a number of times for reasons I'd learn later. The first chapter she read sounded good, though, making me glad I'd be able to start it that night. Even Jonah seemed to like it.

There was a Q&A afterward, and I liked it both for the "regular" fan reasons and for how I could parse out Penny mostly avoiding actual lies.  When someone asked how she went from athlete to author, it was "I always wrote, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I thought I had ideas for novels people would want to read." Or taking about marrying into Korean-American family making her want to portray a more multi-cultural society than a lot of young adult series do without mentioning that she actually was Korean-American for a while. Or how she's not always sure about what motivates the "Pygmalion" in her books, because there were a couple of inspirations, some more benign than others.

After the Q&A, the kind of scary part began. Scary for me, at least; while I'm sure that a lot of the other folks in line were nervous about the few sentences they were going to exchange with the author, they probably had that neutralized by the frustration of waiting in line. I, on the other hand, was sweating enough to make a lot of the parents there with their teenage daughters look askance, and dropped my money when paying for my copy of the novel. I had to swallow a couple of times when I finally did get to the front of the line. She wasn't really intimidating in person, beyond being tall, attractive, and super-healthy-looking, but, still...

She asked me to whom to address the autograph, and I said "Annette Grayson".  Then she did the most awesome damn thing ever.

She smiled, started scribbling on the title page, and said "Hi, Benjamin. I was hoping you'd come." I had this whole thing ready to go about how I went to the Inn because of her, all vague so that the other people in line wouldn't think I was nuts, and she already knew who I was! Then she reached into a pile of books that were already inscribed, gave me one, and made sure to point out the slip of paper stuck in there like a bookmark.

That was it, at least until Jonah and I got outside and I could pull the paper out and read it: "Special post-signing event for fellow guests of the Trading Post Inn. 8:30pm, The Changeling, Arlington." I showed it to Jonah, dumbfounded, before my brain started working again and I looked up transit directions.  Getting out to Arlington meant taking the bus, one which I may not have found except that Jonah goes through Alewife station daily to get to work.

I called Missy, but there was no response. Her loss. The neighborhood where we got off the bus was kind of modest, and "The Changeling" blended in, without even a neon sign advertising some beer or other. It was still obviously a bar, though, which made Jonah nervous. I told him to relax - we'd get carded, but our genuine IDs would check out.

We walked in, and it turned out to be a cozy-looking Irish pub, with a bar, tables for dining, a jukebox, the usual.  The bartender fit the general atmosphere; a redhead of about thirty who greeted us with an accent that didn't quite seem to be from any specific place but wasn't the generic middle-American thing, either.  My eyes were drawn to her tight sweater, and that's when it hit me, and I got nervous all over again.

"Are you...  Are you Ashlyn Shelley?"

She smiled.  "For eight years now, if you know what I mean."

"I do!"  I grabbed Jonah's hands and pulled him toward the bar.  "I'm--"  I stopped for a second as I realized what I was about to say, but then went through with it.  "I'm Annette Grayson, and this is my friend Jonah."

Jonah looked at me like I was crazy for a second, but Ashlyn reassured him.  "Don't worry, you're among friends.  Come on, there's a table set up for us back here, and drinks are on the house.  What would you like?"

I kept it simple and ordered a Guinness, and Jonah stuck with a Coke, seeming a little uncomfortable that I was having a beer despite not chronologically being of legal age. Ashlyn didn't make a big deal of it in either direction.

She kept tending bar until another red-headed girl came in, rattling off every lousy thing that had made her late and then loudly announcing to the whole pub that the authentic experience began right now, at least as far as the bar was concerned. Ashlyn semi-sarcastically saluted - Moira had apparently been a wiseass since the day she was hired - and then settled into a seat at our table. "If only she knew how inauthentic an Irish girl I really am!  This is just about all the barbecue on the menu."

"Right, because you were originally from Texas!"  Not knowing how far back Jonah had read, I introduced him.  "Jonah, this is Ashlyn Shelly, though she started out as Jake Matthews - she's one of the original writers of the blog!" Belatedly realizing I had no idea how much she knew about us, I repeated that I was Annette Grayson, how Benjamin Jones, with some time spent as Ravi Kapoor in between. I started to explain about Jonah before deciding it really wasn't my place, although he didn't leave much out. Then I felt myself doing a thing I hadn't thought much about before I started seeing girls my actual age from the outside - kind of letting a little air out as I realized this exciting thing I could hardly have hoped far was actually happening, probably getting a dopey grin that would look cute on my original face. "Sorry, this is just so cool! Although you don't quite look like I imagined you."

"Hey, you don't stay in your early twenties forever without going back to the Inn. You hit thirty, the metabolism that made you curvy slows down whether you stop eating barbecue or not, so you start running with your fitness-nut best friend, and as a side effect the boobs shrink from 'holy shit!' to 'still very nice!' Then you get a simpler haircut, start dressing a little more respectably because you remember that being respected was just as gratifying as guys trying to get in your panties..."  She laughed.  "Don't mind the girl whining about having to act only ten years less than her age; I've done pretty well in every category but guys, and I'm still pretty optimistic on that count."

She looked up as the door opened, then raised her hand to signal the folks who had just come in. I had my back to it, so I just heard some guy asking is this was it before Ashlyn said that seemed to be the case, what with everyone busy with the holidays. Then the chair next to me was pulled out and Penny Freaking Lincoln extended her hand, said we hadn't been properly introduced, and also indicated that the Korean-American man on her other side was her husband Ray.

I stammered like crazy, saying something dumb like not being sure whether this was more like meeting J.K. Rowling or Harry Potter, and felt mortified when the whole table, even Jonah, laughed. I started to apologize, but Penny stopped me, saying it was a good line and I should use it in something someday.

(I'm not sure at what point in the evening she said I could call her Penny, but she totally did!)

In fact, she said she should apologize to me for not deleting her entries or changing the names in them when her agent said not to put something like that on the web for free, because she never imagined it would lead to someone actually coming to the Inn and getting stuck in the same situation. I told her she shouldn't because reading all about her experiences was really helpful, and besides, she couldn't get rid of all the posts that referred to her, and believe me, I would have dug down far enough in the search results to find them. She said she was glad I felt that way, but she still seemed to feel a bit guilty.

Somehow, Jonah was able to interrupt me and say "hey, about the blog - I notice that not a lot of people who wrote on it seem to change back, and out of all the people at this table, only Mr. Kim seems to be himself again; just how doomed am I?"

That quieted things down a bit, but Ashlyn took his hand and said not to worry. "A lot of people who do change back tend to delete their posts, like they can just erase the whole experience.  Other folks, the ones who are really dedicated to just getting through this and getting back tend not to post at all. That's kind of you, right? And while I sometimes wonder if writing on the blog contributes to some of us getting 'stuck' because every time we find something interesting or enjoyable can be read as 'well, they wouldn't really mind staying like that' to people inclined to steal our lives, you can probably counteract that by staying in pretty close contact with the other people in your line."

Ray took his hand. "It can be done. I'm living proof."

That reassured Jonah a bit, I think.  The last bit did make me wonder about my own situation a bit - did my excitement over exploring Ravi's life help Sandra justify just walking away when she saw Missy at the Inn? I don't like victim-blaming (especially when I'm the victim in question!), but did I help create the situation?

Penny seemed to read my mind and gave me a punch on the shoulder. ''Hey, if you're going to tell me that I'm not responsible for you going to the Inn, then you can't blame yourself for that other chick turning away. Now, c'mon, you've got your favorite author in a bar. Ask me shit!"

I froze for a second, and then asked about the ending of the first book, with Marcus choosing Jan over Nancy, and if that was about how she and Ray ended up together. She said that was certainly part of it, but also sprung from Ashlyn shutting the real Pygmalion out of her life.

I asked half-jokingly why the third book was so late, and she said it was because women who used to be men are the craziest pregnant people and most obsessed new mothers, and the only reason she wasn't texting little Lizzie's sitter every ten minutes was that Ray had confiscated her phone.  The only way she got anything done at all over the past year was by making Lynn pregnant in the new mystery novel so that she had something to pour that into.

"Yeah, thanks for that." Ashlyn rolled her eyes. "Like the family hasn't been pestering me about settling down and supplying grandkids already!"

"Hey, you know the character is more me than you, but you're the one who wants them to be impressed!"

Something hit me. "You named your daughter after Liz?"

"Well, she is Ray's oldest friend."

"Yeah, but--"

"I know it's hard for you in particular to believe, but we get along. I mean, we share a life. I understand her in ways you can't even articulate, and once it was all over, and she and Ray were back 'home' and done switching for good, and we could all talk about it... You'll see someday, I hope. There's just too much to gain from being friends."

I wasn't sure. "Maybe after Sandra gives me my life back, we'll be buddies. AFTER that."

''Fair enough."

I thought for a second, then had another question. ''How come there's no gender-bending stuff in the Pygmalion books? I never questioned it before, but now..."

Ray groaned, but Penny laughed. "Oh, that's a thing. There was in the first draft of the first book, but both my agent and the publisher freaked, saying that was the sort of controversy that they didn't need. Fine, whatever, I get it. I write in that you can't do this. Then, this time, they actually want it, figuring that it's a good way to capitalize on all the hubbub about Caitlin Jenner, Tangerine, The Danish Girl, Lana Wachowski, all that. And I'm like, crap, why wasn't this okay three years ago?  It's not like I've forgotten what changing sex is like, but there have been so many other changes since then..."

We all laughed at that, even Jonah, especially once Ashlyn reassured him that every once few months she'll wake up in the middle of the night, stumble to the bathroom, and try to pee standing up.

That's about when my phone rang and Marybeth said she was almost finished with her shift, and was I up for a nightcap?  I felt terrible about feeling torn, but they all said to go ahead, you've got to live your life and she sounded like a good one.

And she really is, if only for putting up with me replaying a heavily redacted version of the evening before we feel asleep on the couch.

-Benjamin/Annette

Annette/Benjamin: First for-real dates

So I met a girl, asked her out, and she didn't sense that I was really creepy for asking out a woman who looks a lot like I used to before a magic inn messed with my body twice and bail. Awfully kind of her, that.

I still kind of freaked out about it, though - when went the New York crew, Erin / Chris asked if I spent forever combing my hair before going out because it should take more than just a few minutes to get ready, and I kind of did a little - I spent a lot of time trying to find something non-formal but a little nicer than jeans and a t-shirt in my closet without a whole lot of luck; Benny is a pretty informal guy (I gather that Kareena is trying to upgrade "Jordan's" wardrobe and it's an uphill climb), and while Ronan bought a suit for job interviews, he and Sandra sort of spent the year playing at being me and Benny, so didn't spend much on things they weren't going to keep. I wound up going with something solid navy up top, the least faded jeans, and sneakers that are solid black enough not to call attention to themselves.

Oh, and I waited until about four-thirty, just before heading out, to shave. As much as I got used to Ravi's mustache pretty quickly, the change at the Inn sucked that back into my face, and I don't really love growing facial hair out. I also recall not really digging kissing stubble as a girl, so I figured I might as well get as smooth as possible for if/when we kissed.  Thankfully, I avoided the potential downside to that plan where I am bleeding from several small cuts to my face

We met up in Davis Square, which is actually in Somerville rather than Boston or Cambridge, but actually has some pretty good places to eat and drink. A little bit of a hike for me compared to her, but not as far as I would routinely go in New York.

It took me a bit of time to spot her in the Square - even on a chilly night, it fills up (the ice cream joint had a line out the door despite it being the first weekend of November).  Also, Marybeth was wearing contacts instead of glasses.  I feel kind of silly being thrown by that in real life, but it was day in large part because she seems to really enjoy surprising people or otherwise throwing them for a loop. Telling her that I didn't recognize her without her glasses delighted her.

Less delightful: Apparently the guy asking the girl out is supposed to make reservations, which meant that we wound up spending more time than was anticipated at the bar, waiting for a table to open up, although there were pluses to that, such as some decent beers on tap. Marybeth isn't nearly so enthusiastic about that as me, so I dialed talking about beer back and just drank at a reasonable rate, though not enough to say weird stuff. We mostly talked about books, with me mentioning that being unemployed gave me a bit of time to catch up. but that's not recommended. She's working on a PhD in 19th Century American Literature, joking about how the world doesn't necessarily need more experts on Mark Twain, and it's in fact sort of a vicious circle - she can't find a job in her field of study much better than selling books, so she decides to go back to school for another couple of years, only this seems to make her area of expertise narrower, and so on. I'm kind of not certain whether to be jealous or relieved not to be on that track, and say as much. That led her to ask how a guy with my obvious intelligence and interests (thanks!) managed to avoid college, and I haven't really got a cover story worked out for that yet. She buys that I didn't test well in high school and only really discovered that I like bigger books and such after I'd been out of school awhile, more or less.

When we do get a seat, the food is pretty good, and we're having enough fun talking that it's not a big deal that we're not walking to the theater until 9:30pm or so, only to find that not only is the 10pm Spectre sold out, but it would have been on one of the smaller screens anyway. The only other thing starting then is called "Love", causing us to give each other a look and blurt out "no pressure" at the same time. I pulled out a debit card, was mildly surprised when they handed us two pairs of 3D glasses, and then handed one to Marybeth. We took our seats, put the glasses on, and, you guessed it, there was a dick pointing straight out of the screen in the very first scene.

There's a LOT of sex in that movie, folks,

A LOT of sex.

I mean, after about twenty minutes we just turned and looked at each other in a kind of horror, because in addition to not really being much of a turn-on, it was all in this story of really self-destructive relationships. Just a really, really terrible first-date movie.

At least for me. I mean, it was okay, but even living in New York for a year, I hadn't seen many movies like this. I don't know if it even could have opened in my hometown back in Maine - it's rated NC-17 - and hearing Marybeth sort of segue from how this was a funny story even if it was king of embarrassing to how it was edited and shot was kind of tough. It just reminded me of how, despite looting a bit older, I am way behind her in experience and education.  And, maybe, sophistication; I kind of wonder if I've been leaning on "I've been different people" to justify looking more grown-up than I maybe am to myself.

Since it was almost midnight by that point, we split off rather than try and extend the night a bit.

---

Because our schedules are both nuts and kind of incompatible, it would be another week and a half before we met back up and actually caught the James Bond movie. It was on the theater's big screen, which is actually really nice - not that much smaller than the Imax screen at the downtown multiplex, really - and it finished up just early enough that we could grab a spot in a bar afterward.

"Better than the French 3D sex movie?"

"Yeah, things blew up real good!"

She shot me a look that said "come on, I know you're not really that kind of guy" and I smiled back, saying that there's something nice about knowing what you're in for.  Somehow that led to a bit of innuendo, and then back to her place...

And then I got to meet her roommate, who was very nice and seemed to approve of me, though she and her four friends playing some board game with extra rules involving shots kind of made things awkward. We got to Marybeth's room and started making out, but every time it seemed like things were about to get really exciting, there would be a whoop from outside, and while we would laugh, doing so seemed to move the sexiness indicator back.

Then Janna came in and asked what Marybeth had used to clean puke from the carpet last time, and we were done. I kissed her good-bye, and I'm sure Janna was apologizing like crazy once I was gone, but that part of the night was just not going any further.

The really sucky part is that there haven't been any more nights since. Between going home (in quotation marks for me) for Thanksgiving and the post-holiday crunch at retail & restaurants, we haven't been able to get our schedules synched up. At least I know we'll see each other at the signing next week, and I hope we haven't lost too much momentum.

-Benjamin/Annette

Annette/Benjamin: Ladies I Like

You would think that dealing with new sexual preferences would be easier for a girl who gets turned into a guy, but I seem to be pretty oblivious until something hits me over the head with it. After all, I may only be 20, despite what this driver's license says, but I probably told other girls that they looked hot more than Missy said something similar to other guys despite vastly more time to do so. Girls making out with each other may mostly be a male fantasy outside of folks who are actually gay, but there's less fear of acknowledging each other as attractive, which you would think would carry over after the Inn reshapes whatever part of your brain is responsible for finding other human beings attractive.

On top of that, you can't argue with erection. A guy turned into a girl may be able to rationalize any sort of internal sensations as meaning something else at first, but there's really no other way to interpret your dick getting hard other than it being ready to go into that person you find attractive. It's embarrassing but definitive.

I suppose that I can be forgiven for needing to get so drunk that inhibitions were out the window as Ravi; even he didn't seem to realize he was gay and I figured that it was just all the things I had filed away in my head as stuff I liked pulling a mind over matter stunt.  Once I actually did it, though, there wasn't much doubting or going back - I was a guy who liked guys, and not just with me taking the girl's role, so to speak.

So while I knew from first-hand experience that being Benny physically would mean being into girls, it didn't really hit me until that ballgame when I wound up kissing Missy. Suddenly, I couldn't deny that holding a woman felt good, and I found myself thinking back on all the times I'd complimented her outfit to see if it wasn't just the clothes I was talking about. My sex dreams suddenly got a whole lot more specific and vivid. It suddenly seemed like every movie poster and magazine cover was pushing breasts in my face.

And that that was kind of awesome.

I can't exactly say that I didn't appreciate my boobs when I had them - I had no problem wearing a bikini at the beach, and my prom dress wasn't that of a shy church girl. I knew how to lean over a bit when I wanted a guy to notice me, and buying bras - real bras - was one of the first times I felt grown up despite still being in high school. Even now, I know that if a woman is showing some cleavage, it is probably because she just likes the look, not because she wants a guy's attention.

I know all that, but my head is on a swivel anyway. Maybe there's some element of envy to it for me, but I can't lie: I want to touch.  Not quite to the extent of understanding why boys acted like lunatics in high school, but a lot.

Which brings us to the part where my story begins and gets kind of weird.

I don't go to Harvard Square a lot, because that's where the university is and thus where Sandra is, and being around her is something that I have been avoiding. It's got one of the country's best book stores, though, with author talks and a basement full of used books and remainders, plus two or three other book stores besides, so I took the 66 up Monday afternoon and started browsing. It was all going well until I looked up, saw Sandra walking straight toward me, and ducked into the next aisle because this was not the day I was ready to deal with her. It's one of those stores where it's a sort of maze, though, and even if you really wanted to leave (which I didn't), you may have to take a pretty indirect route around other browsers or be pushed in the opposite direction because avoiding someone was taking priority over getting somewhere.

After about a half-dozen near-misses, we finally wound up turning a corner right into each other. I almost knocked her over, and when I instinctively reached out a hand to keep her from falling, she grabbed it. looked up, and smiled as she said she'd finally caught me. That's when I realized she wasn't actually Sandra.

It was an easy mistake; she was the right height, had brown hair styled much the same way Sandra did when I saw her in August, and wore glasses that made her heart-shaped face look even more triangular like I used to do. The t-shirt she was wearing - the cover of The Great Gatsby - had been one of my favorites.

If I had taken a closer look rather than run away, though, I would have spotted the freckles, the closer-to-green eye color, and the fact that she was doing everything with her left hand (Inn folks: does handedness change like sexual orientation?). And, of course, the tag that said she was an employee of the store and that her name was Marybeth.

I asked what she'd meant about catching me and she pulled my wallet out of her pocket. "You dropped this over by 'Mystery'. Pants that dump your stuff from the pockets and avoiding the folks who are here to help isn't a great combination."

I  blushed a bit as I took the phone back. "Sorry!  I don't usually do that, I just thought you were someone else."

"Did you? Or did you think I was someone specific, only for me to actually turn out to be 'someone else'?"

"Wow," I said, "and here I thought that I was picky about grammar when I asked people who say they're 'doing good' about their volunteer work."

She laughed. ''That's a good one. I'm stealing that." She apparently felt a supervisor wandering into the area, because she started asking if there was something she could help me find. I remembered that biography was on the other side of the store, which gave her an excuse to lead me there.

"So, who did you think I was? Ex-girlfriend?"

"Sort of. Yeah." I pondered saying she literally wouldn't believe me, but this was not the time for gags about "literally" being redefined. "Let's just say it seems like a complicated situation until I realize that in reality, it's pretty simple - we're not going to have anything to do with each other because no good comes out of being that angry."

"Ouch! Explains why a grown man plays hide-and-hide-and-seek in a bookstore, though."

''Yeah--" I saw something out of the corner of my eye and stopped, drawn to a poster listing upcoming events, and I kind of rudely, I guess, took a step in that direction. "You've got a Penny Lincoln-Kim signing coming up?"

The change of subject threw her a bit, but she is pretty good at her job. "Yeah, she's local and shops here all the time to boot. Why, are you a fan?"

"Totally! I totally connected to Pygmalion's Proteges right away - I was such a, um, such a Morris back when I was in high school." I tried to put the brakes on my fangirling, at least not blurting out that I identified with Geena. Or saying how it and Pygmalion's Pioneers made a lot more sense to me knowing that my favorite female writer had started out a man before spending a couple weeks in a cursed Inn. "The Lynn Ashford mysteries are really good, too."

"Well, then, I guess you'll have to brave the crowd of teenage girls when she comes to sign Pygmalion's Proposal, won't you?"

She was amused by me, I could tell, but it didn't bother me much. Sometimes you've just got to let the original you out, and let folks think that you're just kind of eccentric.

We stood there for a couple minutes, and then someone asked her where something by Richard Feynman was, and she said that one would be under science rather than biography, and led him away.

I had my books paid for and was halfway back to the T station before something clicked in my head.  

"Damn it!" I yelled, setting some looks as I turned around and started stomping back toward the bookstore. "You're the guy now!  She drops hints and you ask for her number!"

I opened the door hard enough that the bells attached made more noise than usual, scanned the place, and not seeing Marybeth, headed down to the basement where she was tidying up a shelf in the Young Adult section.  She looked up and smirked. "You realize that I'm about to make a major exception, right? Normally guys have to be a lot quicker on the uptake to get my number!"

"Then what makes me so special?"

"Well, you're buying a lot of books for the size of your paycheck - did I mention I looked through your wallet? Cuz I did - you've got a couple interesting movie tickets in there, a Maine driver's license, some random business cards from New York City, a phone message where the name crossed out isn't even vaguely related to the one replacing it... Let's just say I like good stories and you probably have way more than a guy I'd meet in a bar.

"You're also cute."

That last sentence had an effect on me that may not have been quite so definitive as an erection, but arranging to meet for dinner and a movie on Saturday was a foregone conclusion. If nothing else, it's my turn to have some fun after the stories Missy has been telling me for the last few weeks.

-Benjamin, because it's hard to sign a post about getting erections and asking a girl out ''Annette"

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: Back to School

I've been trying not to rub Benjamin's face in how good the life he might have had if he spoke Chinese can be, but let's face it - not only is it pretty fucking sweet at times, but if you were making a return visit to the Trading Post Inn, knew that your old life was gone, and could choose any room in the place without screwing over anybody else, you would probably choose someone like Lee Yuan-Wei, for three reasons.

First, she's young and hot, and all things being equal, that's better than the alternative. Maybe all things aren't equal - maybe you've got issues with changing ethnicity, and, fuck, I wouldn't exactly be down with giving up my dick if I hadn't had a year to get used to being without it. But within whatever bounds you set, it is nice to wake up and like the naked body that you see in the mirror.  I like looking down and seeing good-sized boobs and nice legs whenever I want to.  I am finding that I mostly like people talking to me rather than looking away. You deal with more assholes, but you have more choices.

(Her family being rich probably goes under this category - the fact is, the Inn's clientele probably tends to fall within a certain income bracket, with Yuan-wei being an outlier who was only there by accident. You're generally going to wind up "not poor, but not exactly wealthy" 99% of the time.)

Second, she's a college student. Practically, this is way better than having to dive into a job without any sort of training; you'll be expected to screw up and learn. If you know that this is for the long term, you can either point your new life at something familiar or whatever you've decided you should have done instead.

Plus, college itself is awesome. There are parties, clubs, an environment full of young people with similar interests, student days and discounts... If you've been through it before, you're probably remembering having more free time and figuring that will only increase with experience. Shit, I started missing college about a month into my first job and suspect that for a lot of us, the main thing that keeps us from going back for a masters/PhD within a couple of years is the student loans that need to be fed.

As for the last thing... Maybe she isn't officially one yet, but she's at least on the path to being an actor or actress. I'll bet a whole fuckton of people who have visited the Inn and wind up stuck in some other life wind up doing community theater or auditioning for something because, shit, everyone knows that there's good money in it if you make it to the top and we spend our whole lives pretending to be someone else - we obviously have a head up on all the normal people who we'd be auditioning against, right?

Well, most people have had practice pretending to be someone else.  I stayed in and tried to be myself as much as circumstances would allow, and while I don't regret it much at all, it means that I don't have nearly the experience in finding ways to turn someone wanting something from me into a way to discover something about who "Lee Yuan-wei" is expected to be while simultaneously satisfying that expectation.

Which is a problem, because she has chosen the most painfully fucking social major possible.

Me, I majored in computer science, and while not all of the stereotypes were true about everyone, there were certainly a lot of us that lived like Morlocks, coding deep into the night, finishing off a two-liter of Mountain Dew, and maybe doing the same with World of Warcraft if there wasn't something due that week. Not everybody was like this, and there were some classes where they put you on teams to work on a larger assignment - some where that was the whole point - but you can get through a lot of a CS major by doing the reading, coding, and showing up for the final.

Theater? Not a fucking chance!

ALL of the courses Yuan-Wei signed up for are pretty much mandatory-attendance. Even if we're just watching a movie, they get stopped and we've got to discuss the scene, and one of the professors is old and absent-minded enough that he'll frequently wander back to his desk and make notes about who is participating and who isn't, and probably which ones of us are saying stupid shit that gets laughed at.

And that's before you get to the actual acting classes.

I'm only in one right now, and it's a really bizarre thing in that there aren't a lot of concrete things to learn - no "this is how you cry on cue" stuff, really - but a whole lot of talking, trying to relate what's in the text to something from your own life to try and bring some emotion out. tn don't suck at reading something and getting what it needs, but it sometimes feels like my classmates, who took similar courses with Yuan-wei last year, are suggesting things that I can't access and making me feel like I have to hold back because they know "me" better than I do and me trying to inject myself into it just makes me come off as insincere.

There is also not a whole lot of immediate, reliable feedback. I don't have the practice that the original Yuan-wei did, and it's kind of like being in the batting cage but not seeing where the balls you hit are heading. I often feel like I'm really nailing something only to be told that I'm way off.

Most of my classmates seem nice, though the guys seem way nicer.  I don't think it's too conceited to chalk a lot of that up to them wanting to fuck me - I still get that feeling when I see myself in the mirror - but it holds for the gay guys and the ones who just aren't into Asian chicks as well. At first, I had it down to the inverse - envious of my hotness and family wealth, and a bit of how Benjamin warned me that men really have no inkling of how competitive girls can be (unless it's over them).  It turns out, though, that theater is just a hyper-competitive major here - something like 70% wash out by the end of their sophomore year - which, naturally, is where I landed.

Of course, it's not just competitive as a major in this particular college, but as an activity. I'm not a rival for the guys in the program, but there are only so many female leads, strong supporting roles, and so on down to complete background players to go around. And it's not like there are many under the school's umbrella - stuff I'd get actual credit toward a degree for - specifically for Asian women and thus with a smaller field.

I don't think many of my female classmates are actively sabotaging me, but I sort of suspect it might be in the backs of their minds. I don't know how necessary it may actually be - even the auditions I feel like I crush don't seem to set much reaction at all.

Will I fall far behind if I don't get a role in a fall production? I don't know. Just have to keep fucking trying, I guess - if I'm going to be the best possible Yuan-wei I can be, the way Benny is impressing people as me, I'm going to have to get the hang of it.

-Jordo / Yuan-Wei / Missy