It's not the only thing about this body - well, this form; it's still my body, isn't it? - that I hate, but it's something that I just can't seem to get any help with. For all the hints Arlene can give me about every other element of being a teenage girl, dealing with African hair is all on me. I'm half-tempted to go out for the swim team just so that I have an excuse to shave it off, but that would mean more time in the locker room.
If Betty were college-aged, that might be fun, although I suppose that in such a case I might be mortified over other people seeing me getting changed, as so many other people who have been through the Inn and changed sex have described. Instead, though, I'm stuck taking a physical education class with a bunch of Grade 9 girls, and how do you not feel like a complete pervert surrounded by 15-year-olds? I usually just try to face the locker as much as I can and not make eye contact. I'm not sure which is worse, feeling disgusted at myself or the idea that I eventually may not feel that way.
Arlene feels it too, at least a little. About a week ago, she came home from a football game late. The Daves didn't much care, and why should they, but she shook me awake as soon as she got in (and I'd just fallen asleep!). I asked what it was, and she said she'd gone out with some of the other cheerleaders and players after the football game, and she'd wound up making out with the quarterback.
I congratulated her and rolled over in bed, but she pulled me back. "I told you when this first happened to me, I don't do kids! He's only seventeen, and he thinks I'm sixteen, so that's trouble no matter how you look at it! And I don't want trouble this time!"
"'This time'. You understand that these aren't our lives, right? That eventually, we're going to be ourselves again?"
She groaned, not wanting to get into the argument over why we haven't heard from the original Betty or Lasker family yet again. It's something we've hashed and rehashed over the past month and a half, generally along the lines of me and Big Dave not wanting to spend the rest of our lives female while Arlene and Little Dave say our lives our better and not to look a gift horse in the mouth. "Look, even if Betty and Heidi do show back up and want their lives back and we can give it to them, do we want to give them back screwed up?"
"So what's the problem? You made out a little, got grossed out, came home."
"What about next time? I've got a ton of teenage hormone juice in me right now, and this may come as a shock to you, but I wasn't so hot at saying no the last time!"
"I imagine you'll get better with practice."
"Yeah, but... Look, Rick and I have a double-date with Justin and Lacey on Friday. I can't back out, and even if this is temporary like you say, I don't want to leave Heidi with a bad reputation. Could you come with us? Be our fifth wheel, help me put on the brakes when I need to? I'll get better at this, I promise, but until I do..."
"Damn it, Arlene..."
"I'll find out what Keisha does with her hair. Her straight, beautiful hair."
"Fine! Just let me sleep!"
So the next day, Arlene asked one of the black girls on the squad how she got her hair straight, saying that "Betty" envied it but didn't want to look like she was ashamed of her African-ness. It turns out it's done with some chemical goop called "relaxer". We bought a container of it at a CVS before meeting the others for the movie (is it me, or is the beauty products section of a drug store much smaller here than it is back home?).
I was oddly excited about getting that stuff under control, and then the previews before the movie included one for a documentary with Chris Rock that shows that the stuff is incredibly toxic and corrosive, so that gunk got thrown in the trash on the way out. I'll deal with brushing if the alternative is something that can burn my scalp. As I said, this is still my body, and who knows if any sort of damage to it will carry over should I get to be myself again?
Arlene did, at least, promise to treat me to a trip to a hair salon as a "birthday" present (Betty's 17th was last week). Nice of her, I guess, and I don't have any reason to be suspicious of it, the same way I may of the restaurant gift certificate that arrived a few days later.
-Marc
Showing posts with label Betty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Betty. Show all posts
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Marc/Betty: Repeating a grade.
Having heard from both teachers, it's probably worth hearing from the one of us who became a student, right? I meant to post something about it last weekend, but we'll get to why as the time comes.
The first day, at least to start with, was almost too hectic for me to focus on what was going on. We got back to Newton late on Labour Day, and had to stay up late going through the mail that had piled up in the past month, looking for the things that directly pertained to us, with Arlene forging the signatures of Don and Jillian as necessary. The Daves were no help, although I can understand their perhaps being more focused on sleeping arrangements. Little Dave was trying to push the single-bed plan, while Big Dave was having none of it. She (pardon me for this, but not having met Big Dave/Jillian before, it is hard for me to describe her as a man, no matter how decidedly unfeminine she acts) was trying to get him to rearrange the bedrooms so that Arlene and I were sharing a room that night, but he was tired and we pointed out that maybe they didn't have to get up the next morning, we did, so why not save it for tomorrow?
Then they started arguing about who would take the couch that night. It was, I suppose, kind of darkly funny, with "Jillian" saying that "Donald" should do it because he's the man, and then "Don" riposting that she'd spent the entire weekend saying she wasn't really a woman. Finally I said I would do it, just so I could get some sleep. I got everything I figured I would need out of the spare bedroom, set my alarm, and somehow got five hours of sleep before getting up the next morning and having Heidi drag my half-awake self drag me through the process of getting ready.
Getting to school wasn't too hard; Heidi had left instructions on how to use both Newton's own bus system and the MBTA to do it. We arrived a bit early, and then she arranged to tag along as the vice-principal gave me a quick tour of the grounds, since Betty hadn't flown in from Africa for orientation like new students or attended for two years like Heidi had. It was, I had to admit, impressive, far more so than the public school I attended outside Montreal twenty years ago - we certainly didn't have a swimming pool, a separate science building, or a miniature food court in the cafeteria. She was pleased to meet me, but noticed that my accent was different from some of the other Nigerian students they had hosted in the past. I'd done just enough online research to bluff my way through an explanation that Nigeria had as many if not more regional languages as an equivalent area of the U.S. I think she expected me to be harder to understand, but having lived near Montreal all my life, where it pays to be bilingual, I speak English fairly well, even if I still think in French.
The school day itself was mostly like I remember from my own high school days, only in English. The differences were striking, though. I felt odd standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, although I hope that at some point the unease will fade and I'll just be able to laugh at the absurdity of me, a French-Canadian man pretending to be a Nigerian girl, standing while the rest of the class intones this speech in a quite frankly frightening monotone. Most at least understand my not putting my hand on my heart and reciting, since I'm foreign. It at least means I don't have to spend that minute feeling uncomfortable about touching my underage breast.
The biggest change, I think, is that most of the students, "Betty" and "Heidi" included, have traded in spiral notebooks for laptops. I've got one of those miniature ones, "netbooks", that actually feels like it's about the right size because of my smaller hands. I'm still not used to taking notes that way, and neither is Arlene. Some of the kids just open them up, use the camera to record the lecture, with the intention of transcribing it afterward. For us, it feels wrong not to take paper notes, so I tend to jump between the two, occasionally writing my blog on Tuesday during classes I knew from long ago... Like French, my first class on that day.
Even though we know a fair amount of what we're being taught, Arlene and I are both putting in the time after school to study and read our assignments. We haven't heard from either the original Betty or Laskers, nor the new people taking up our lives, so I've got to make being Betty work; though I doubt they'd deport me for failing my first chemistry test, why do anything more that might move me closer to having first-hand knowledge of what Nigeria is like?
I also must say, I don't know whether to be impressed or alarmed with how clever Arlene is in terms of insinuating herself into Heidi's life, especially since I appear to be one of her primary tools for doings so. For example, last weekend, I'd been planning on just resting, maybe getting into contact with the other transformees in the Boston area or even catching a train back up to Old Orchard to see if we could meet the new us or learn more about the Inn. Instead, though, she decides it's important that we hang around with Heidi's friends.
I say she should have fun with that, but she says it's important I come along - after all, even if the Inn's curse keeps people believing that we're who we appear to be, it doesn't give us any information. But, stick a stranger in the middle, and Heidi's girlfriends will explain every little detail. So now Arlene's got the lowdown on who Heidi was dating, why they broke up earlier in the summer, which members of the cheerleading team were bitches and which weren't, and similar information about the teachers.
Useful, I suppose, although it's rather creepy when, on Sunday night, the sweet-looking young girl combing her hair tells you how it's just like reading johns, figuring out how to get them to talk about themselves, fill you in so that they feel like they're making a connection. She's quite matter-of-fact about that, and it's a little scary, to be honest - as much as the new body situation is freaking me out, she is genuinely enjoying being young again, and sees a new life laid out ahead of her as a blessing rather than the frightening situation it seems to me, but there are moments when it's very clear that she certainly hasn't put her old one completely behind her.
-Marc
The first day, at least to start with, was almost too hectic for me to focus on what was going on. We got back to Newton late on Labour Day, and had to stay up late going through the mail that had piled up in the past month, looking for the things that directly pertained to us, with Arlene forging the signatures of Don and Jillian as necessary. The Daves were no help, although I can understand their perhaps being more focused on sleeping arrangements. Little Dave was trying to push the single-bed plan, while Big Dave was having none of it. She (pardon me for this, but not having met Big Dave/Jillian before, it is hard for me to describe her as a man, no matter how decidedly unfeminine she acts) was trying to get him to rearrange the bedrooms so that Arlene and I were sharing a room that night, but he was tired and we pointed out that maybe they didn't have to get up the next morning, we did, so why not save it for tomorrow?
Then they started arguing about who would take the couch that night. It was, I suppose, kind of darkly funny, with "Jillian" saying that "Donald" should do it because he's the man, and then "Don" riposting that she'd spent the entire weekend saying she wasn't really a woman. Finally I said I would do it, just so I could get some sleep. I got everything I figured I would need out of the spare bedroom, set my alarm, and somehow got five hours of sleep before getting up the next morning and having Heidi drag my half-awake self drag me through the process of getting ready.
Getting to school wasn't too hard; Heidi had left instructions on how to use both Newton's own bus system and the MBTA to do it. We arrived a bit early, and then she arranged to tag along as the vice-principal gave me a quick tour of the grounds, since Betty hadn't flown in from Africa for orientation like new students or attended for two years like Heidi had. It was, I had to admit, impressive, far more so than the public school I attended outside Montreal twenty years ago - we certainly didn't have a swimming pool, a separate science building, or a miniature food court in the cafeteria. She was pleased to meet me, but noticed that my accent was different from some of the other Nigerian students they had hosted in the past. I'd done just enough online research to bluff my way through an explanation that Nigeria had as many if not more regional languages as an equivalent area of the U.S. I think she expected me to be harder to understand, but having lived near Montreal all my life, where it pays to be bilingual, I speak English fairly well, even if I still think in French.
The school day itself was mostly like I remember from my own high school days, only in English. The differences were striking, though. I felt odd standing for the Pledge of Allegiance, although I hope that at some point the unease will fade and I'll just be able to laugh at the absurdity of me, a French-Canadian man pretending to be a Nigerian girl, standing while the rest of the class intones this speech in a quite frankly frightening monotone. Most at least understand my not putting my hand on my heart and reciting, since I'm foreign. It at least means I don't have to spend that minute feeling uncomfortable about touching my underage breast.
The biggest change, I think, is that most of the students, "Betty" and "Heidi" included, have traded in spiral notebooks for laptops. I've got one of those miniature ones, "netbooks", that actually feels like it's about the right size because of my smaller hands. I'm still not used to taking notes that way, and neither is Arlene. Some of the kids just open them up, use the camera to record the lecture, with the intention of transcribing it afterward. For us, it feels wrong not to take paper notes, so I tend to jump between the two, occasionally writing my blog on Tuesday during classes I knew from long ago... Like French, my first class on that day.
Even though we know a fair amount of what we're being taught, Arlene and I are both putting in the time after school to study and read our assignments. We haven't heard from either the original Betty or Laskers, nor the new people taking up our lives, so I've got to make being Betty work; though I doubt they'd deport me for failing my first chemistry test, why do anything more that might move me closer to having first-hand knowledge of what Nigeria is like?
I also must say, I don't know whether to be impressed or alarmed with how clever Arlene is in terms of insinuating herself into Heidi's life, especially since I appear to be one of her primary tools for doings so. For example, last weekend, I'd been planning on just resting, maybe getting into contact with the other transformees in the Boston area or even catching a train back up to Old Orchard to see if we could meet the new us or learn more about the Inn. Instead, though, she decides it's important that we hang around with Heidi's friends.
I say she should have fun with that, but she says it's important I come along - after all, even if the Inn's curse keeps people believing that we're who we appear to be, it doesn't give us any information. But, stick a stranger in the middle, and Heidi's girlfriends will explain every little detail. So now Arlene's got the lowdown on who Heidi was dating, why they broke up earlier in the summer, which members of the cheerleading team were bitches and which weren't, and similar information about the teachers.
Useful, I suppose, although it's rather creepy when, on Sunday night, the sweet-looking young girl combing her hair tells you how it's just like reading johns, figuring out how to get them to talk about themselves, fill you in so that they feel like they're making a connection. She's quite matter-of-fact about that, and it's a little scary, to be honest - as much as the new body situation is freaking me out, she is genuinely enjoying being young again, and sees a new life laid out ahead of her as a blessing rather than the frightening situation it seems to me, but there are moments when it's very clear that she certainly hasn't put her old one completely behind her.
-Marc
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
Marc/Betty: What a family
Within the Inn the past few days, the fact that Arlene and I only appear to be sixteen didn't matter that much. That she had taken charge the first night certainly made a difference, but at least the other nine people in the building knew that we weren't who we appeared to be, and treated us accordingly.
Once we got outside, it was a different story. Two teenage girls asking strange questions got us brushed off, and by nightfall on Saturday we were both ready for a drink, but no-one was going to serve us. In fact, we started getting a little panicky about simply eating - neither of us had much cash on us when we changed, and we worried that we might get in trouble for using our ATM cards, or those of Don and Jillian Lasker. Betty Okonkwo had arrived in America so recently that she didn't even have a bank account set up yet, and Heidi Lasker's only contained enough for emergencies.
We spent a lot of time showing tourists and locals pictures from Heidi's phone, asking if they had seen these people. No-one had, and we were having a council of war over pancakes Monday morning when... I guess you could say our problems were solved.
A shabbily-dressed couple was arguing outside, but Arlene and I were so focused on our own issues that we weren't hearing the words, only the noise. One of them came in with a slam of the door, and pushed passed Arlene so roughly that she spilled juice on herself. I looked up to chew him out, but froze halfway through a curse. I asked her to give me the phone, and she grumbled while trying to pull it out of her pocket while wiping herself off. I turned it on, pulled up the picture of Donald Lasker, and held it up so I could compare the picture with the face of the person counting out nickels at the counter. He was covered in dirt and scowling compared to the vacation pictures we had to compare with, but maybe... I flicked to the next one, and turned around to face the window. Tough to tell under that bulky jacket and hat, but...
Arlene saw what I was doing, grabbed the phone and did the same comparisons. She was not pleased; "Oh, hell no!" were her exact words.
The new Don gave her an angry look. "What the hell are you looking at?"
"Nothing... Daddy." She turned the phone around so that he could see the picture of a much more clean-cut version of himself.
The man started quivering, and then bolted from the cafe, knocking a table over before grabbing the woman and dragging her after him. Arlene rested her chin on her fists and then pouted. "Great. Just great. What's the point of a new start if you're just going to get shitty parents all over again?"
I was about to say something to her, but realized there were more pressing concerns. I told her to wait right there, got up, and ran after the pair.
They hadn't gotten far, but far enough that I was pretty winded when I finally skidded to a stop in front of them so that they'd stop running. I muttered something under my breath about thinking Africans were supposed to be good at running. "Let me guess," I said, "you two were somewhere around the Trading Post Inn Friday night, and woke up new people?"
The woman ran up and grabbed me. "How do you know? Did you do this to us? We've been trying to tell people, and everyone looks at us like we're crazy!"
"Take it easy! The same thing happened to us. We're not really kids, but..."
"--but we need you guys." Arlene had caught up with us. "Now, I don't know what happens if we try to take over Heidi's and Betty's lives without at least one parent to cover for us, but I suspect it involves me going into foster care or staying with some relative who doesn't know what's going on, and Marc here getting deported. Tell me, Marc, if you get sent to Africa, do you think you'll be able to get your old life back?"
"Uh, no--"
"I didn't think so. So, here's your choices - you can come back to the Inn with us, get a shower, some clean clothes, and drive us to our new home in Newton, Massachusetts... Or you can keep sleeping on the street, maybe sticking close to the Inn so that you can get your old lives back. Because they were clearly awesome."
The two of them looked at each other - and us - warily. The woman pointed at the man. "He's been trying to fuck me for the past two days. I don't have to do that, do I? I mean, we're probably married, bein' your parents and all..."
Even if she didn't have a look on her face saying that it might be a deal-breaker, my answer would have been the same. "I don't see why you should."
"That's right," Arlene said. "I mean, they're sending their daughter to private school and serving as a host family for another girl. They've probably got a big house."
"With spare bedrooms."
"And we can share a room if necessary. After all--" She elbowed me in the side. "--that's what got us into the situation we're in, isn't it?"
I felt myself blushing, although I don't know if anybody could see it under my darker skin. The new Jillian said she figured that would be fine, and while the new Donald looked disappointed, he guessed that was all right. That settled, we led them back to the Inn.
We learned their stories as they got cleaned up and changed. They introduced themselves as "Big Dave" and "Little Dave"; as luck would have it, "Big Dave" was the one who had become Jillian. Neither was exactly forthcoming with why they were living on the streets. I don't think either put much into their letters, either, and Arlene didn't spend much time on hers, either. She said it didn't much matter - whoever became her could do what they wanted with her life. She was just giving information, not instructions.
I, however, did give instructions - as much as I am oddly relieved to no longer have certain responsibilities awaiting me back home, I do hope that whoever becomes Marc Levesque follows through with them, as they are important.
Once that was done, we had an awkward first family meal at one of the local pizza places, and then drove "home". I'm not certain, but I think it took roughly twice as long as it was supposed to - neither of the Daves had been behind the wheel in a while, neither "Betty" nor "Heidi" has a driver's license, and the batteries in the GPS were dead.
I should post this now, as my lunch period is almost over; details about my first day in my second time through high school will have to wait.
-Marc
Once we got outside, it was a different story. Two teenage girls asking strange questions got us brushed off, and by nightfall on Saturday we were both ready for a drink, but no-one was going to serve us. In fact, we started getting a little panicky about simply eating - neither of us had much cash on us when we changed, and we worried that we might get in trouble for using our ATM cards, or those of Don and Jillian Lasker. Betty Okonkwo had arrived in America so recently that she didn't even have a bank account set up yet, and Heidi Lasker's only contained enough for emergencies.
We spent a lot of time showing tourists and locals pictures from Heidi's phone, asking if they had seen these people. No-one had, and we were having a council of war over pancakes Monday morning when... I guess you could say our problems were solved.
A shabbily-dressed couple was arguing outside, but Arlene and I were so focused on our own issues that we weren't hearing the words, only the noise. One of them came in with a slam of the door, and pushed passed Arlene so roughly that she spilled juice on herself. I looked up to chew him out, but froze halfway through a curse. I asked her to give me the phone, and she grumbled while trying to pull it out of her pocket while wiping herself off. I turned it on, pulled up the picture of Donald Lasker, and held it up so I could compare the picture with the face of the person counting out nickels at the counter. He was covered in dirt and scowling compared to the vacation pictures we had to compare with, but maybe... I flicked to the next one, and turned around to face the window. Tough to tell under that bulky jacket and hat, but...
Arlene saw what I was doing, grabbed the phone and did the same comparisons. She was not pleased; "Oh, hell no!" were her exact words.
The new Don gave her an angry look. "What the hell are you looking at?"
"Nothing... Daddy." She turned the phone around so that he could see the picture of a much more clean-cut version of himself.
The man started quivering, and then bolted from the cafe, knocking a table over before grabbing the woman and dragging her after him. Arlene rested her chin on her fists and then pouted. "Great. Just great. What's the point of a new start if you're just going to get shitty parents all over again?"
I was about to say something to her, but realized there were more pressing concerns. I told her to wait right there, got up, and ran after the pair.
They hadn't gotten far, but far enough that I was pretty winded when I finally skidded to a stop in front of them so that they'd stop running. I muttered something under my breath about thinking Africans were supposed to be good at running. "Let me guess," I said, "you two were somewhere around the Trading Post Inn Friday night, and woke up new people?"
The woman ran up and grabbed me. "How do you know? Did you do this to us? We've been trying to tell people, and everyone looks at us like we're crazy!"
"Take it easy! The same thing happened to us. We're not really kids, but..."
"--but we need you guys." Arlene had caught up with us. "Now, I don't know what happens if we try to take over Heidi's and Betty's lives without at least one parent to cover for us, but I suspect it involves me going into foster care or staying with some relative who doesn't know what's going on, and Marc here getting deported. Tell me, Marc, if you get sent to Africa, do you think you'll be able to get your old life back?"
"Uh, no--"
"I didn't think so. So, here's your choices - you can come back to the Inn with us, get a shower, some clean clothes, and drive us to our new home in Newton, Massachusetts... Or you can keep sleeping on the street, maybe sticking close to the Inn so that you can get your old lives back. Because they were clearly awesome."
The two of them looked at each other - and us - warily. The woman pointed at the man. "He's been trying to fuck me for the past two days. I don't have to do that, do I? I mean, we're probably married, bein' your parents and all..."
Even if she didn't have a look on her face saying that it might be a deal-breaker, my answer would have been the same. "I don't see why you should."
"That's right," Arlene said. "I mean, they're sending their daughter to private school and serving as a host family for another girl. They've probably got a big house."
"With spare bedrooms."
"And we can share a room if necessary. After all--" She elbowed me in the side. "--that's what got us into the situation we're in, isn't it?"
I felt myself blushing, although I don't know if anybody could see it under my darker skin. The new Jillian said she figured that would be fine, and while the new Donald looked disappointed, he guessed that was all right. That settled, we led them back to the Inn.
We learned their stories as they got cleaned up and changed. They introduced themselves as "Big Dave" and "Little Dave"; as luck would have it, "Big Dave" was the one who had become Jillian. Neither was exactly forthcoming with why they were living on the streets. I don't think either put much into their letters, either, and Arlene didn't spend much time on hers, either. She said it didn't much matter - whoever became her could do what they wanted with her life. She was just giving information, not instructions.
I, however, did give instructions - as much as I am oddly relieved to no longer have certain responsibilities awaiting me back home, I do hope that whoever becomes Marc Levesque follows through with them, as they are important.
Once that was done, we had an awkward first family meal at one of the local pizza places, and then drove "home". I'm not certain, but I think it took roughly twice as long as it was supposed to - neither of the Daves had been behind the wheel in a while, neither "Betty" nor "Heidi" has a driver's license, and the batteries in the GPS were dead.
I should post this now, as my lunch period is almost over; details about my first day in my second time through high school will have to wait.
-Marc
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Marc Levesque: Mon Dieu!
I am not a religious man. I've been baptized, yes, but I only go to Mass twice a year. I found confession good for my soul, but when my marriage fell apart, I did not hesitate to divorce. And yet, when the Inn's magic struck me, my first thought was that it was God's vengeance for my sins.
He had reason to do so; when I left the Inn last night, I was aiming to sin. I was going somewhat crazy hanging around the inn, waiting for a call. I spent some time on the beach reading a book, mildly diverted when some high school kids set up a net to play volleyball, maybe not looking away quickly enough when I realized how young they were. I waded some in the water, came out, put on some pants and went to get some food. Then, after eating it on the pier, I went to find some place to drink.
The drinking was good - there were some places serving decent microbrews - but it was not really the goal. I was, no denying it, looking for a girl. I was not having much success, though; most of the other vacationers were couples or families, and the ones from the rest who weren't immediately turned off by the gray at my temples were in a group that they didn't want to separate from. At about midnight I decided I had had enough; I started to stand when a woman sat down at the bar beside me.
She was a bit younger than myself - in her mid-thirties, although she was wearing a lot of cosmetics to cover up that they maybe hadn't been easy years. Or maybe she was trying to look younger, and it wasn't quite working. She had dirty blonde hair, a tight black dress that manhandled her breasts into perching high on her chest, and boots that had a stiletto point to their heels. She smiled at me, expecting me to buy her a drink.
I sighed. "So it's come to this," I said.
She smiled a little wider, probably to avoid scowling. "It's not so bad. You're looking for something and I can supply it."
We haggled a bit on the price, but not long. I did want what she was offering, after all. I paid for the drinks, and took Arlene back to the Inn.
There were a couple of vagrants sitting on a bench nearby, and they made some whistling noises at her as we walked past them. She shivered a little as we crossed the threshhold - it is starting to get chilly at night - and then we went to my room. And then we started.
As one might expect from a professional of her experience, Arlene was good. She started with her mouth, and then we moved to the bed. She had learned a lot of tricks, and I don't want to describe what we were doing when half-past two came around. Both our eyes were closed, but she was yelling "oh god", and as this feeling of becoming lighter flowed over me, her voice became higher. I felt myself going limp, so I tried to thrust deeper, but it did not good. I opened my eyes and was shocked by what I saw - where before I would have put Arlene in her mid-thirties, the girl making those noises was a teenager!
Without looking or thinking, I grabbed the feet that were digging into my armpits by the ankles and shoved her off me. She fell off the end of the bed and hit the floor with a thump. "Ow! What was that for?" She hauled herself up over the foot of the bed, intending to look angrily at me, only to have her jaw drop in shock. I was looking at much the same thing, and having much the same reaction.
I had gotten a bit of a tan over the past week, but now my skin was black. A deep, chocolate black all over, only a little lighter on the palms of my hands and soles of my feet. My belly was gone, as was my body hair, for the most part, with the exception of a small patch near my new vagina. I had the firm teenage breasts to match it, and my limbs and belly had also grown slender, like a girl's.
Arlene looked scared. "Look," she said, "I don't know how you made yourself look white, or older, or like a man, but I don't do kids. I'll do a lot of other stuff, but I draw the line at that!"
"Moi non plus!" I'd slipped into French out of shock, and she looked confused. "I don't do kids either!"
She looked down then, grabbing at her now much-smaller breasts. She saw that her pubic hair indicated that she was now a natural blonde, pulled some of the finer hair growing from her head in front of her eyes, and then ran to the bathroom to see her new face in the mirror. "I'm a girl again... Frenchy, what did you do?"
"I don't know!" Then I remembered what I'd read on the Inn's website which I had dismissed as fiction. I told her what I gathered from it; she actually smiled. "So, I'm not Arlene Randall any more. I wonder who I am!"
She opened the closet but didn't find anything. "You said there are supposed to be suitcases with new lives in them! Where are they?"
"Je ne sais... I do not know! You say we're teenagers; maybe our parents were staying in the next room, and the suitcases would be there?"
She considered that, and nodded. "Good idea, Frenchy." She ran, naked, from the closet, back to the bathroom that connected this room with the next. I fastened a couple of buttons on my shirt, which was now, distressingly, large enough to cover all that needed covering and followed her. While she was banging on the locked door, I caught a look at my new face in the mirror. Kind of pretty, I guess, though I banished that thought from my mind - she was too young for me to think that about, even if she was me. I did note her tangled hair and full lips, though.
Arlene was getting nowhere. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Mademoiselle Randall, I don't think there's anybody in there. I've been here all week and have not heard or seen anybody there."
"Well, our new parents have to be somewhere!" She stormed back in the room, slid on her panties, and then slipped back into her dress. One of the shoulder straps immediately dropped to her elbow, so she stepped out of it and walked over to my suitcase and pulled out a t-shirt. "Do you mind? Thanks." She had it on before I could answer, and then was out the door, banging on the door of the room across from mine. I hurriedly slipped back into my pants, and even with the belt tightened to it's last stop, I had to hold them up to keep from tripping over the cuffs as I followed her out into the hallway.
Screams followed after every door she banged on, but it got the job done. Within minutes, everyone was up and gathered in the lobby. I mention what I'd read here, and a couple others say they saw it, too, but hadn't thought it was real. We looked around, but didn't see any couples that looked likely to be either her new parents or mine. While she was talking, I did a head count... And there were only eleven.
As the others dispersed back to their rooms to find their suitcases, Arlene and I ran around the building, looking for any place where two more people could be, but we couldn't find them. We eventually found the person who'd been transformed into the biggest guy and had him kick down the door (after discovering that our new forms were not up to the task, of course).
There were, as expected, four suitcases to be found in the empty room. Arlene discovered her new name was Heidi Lasker, and that the names of Heidi's parents were Don and Jillian. They seemed to be a fastidious family - all the clothes in the suitcases were freshly cleaned and folded, and they had even taped photographs to them so that we would know which belonged to which. It was with no small amount of trepidation that I opened mine, and read the letter enclosed.
There were other things in there - clothes, a Nigerian passport, a key to the Laskers' house in Newton, and a reminder that classes would start this coming Tuesday, 8 September. I dropped to the bed, almost unable to absorb it, and suddenly exhausted; it was, after all, past three in the morning by then. The adrenaline drained from me, and I would have fallen asleep right there, but Arlene led me back to my room.
When I woke up again, at around ten o'clock, she was already dressed in some of Heidi's clothes, and had tied her hair back in a ponytail. "Hey, sleepyhead! Are you ready for the first day of your new life?"
I protested; we couldn't just pretend to be these girls.
"Why not? I don't know if you've noticed, but we're young, cute, and while Heidi's parents aren't rich-rich-rich, I googled their address - that's a nice spot in the suburbs. Did you know Newton, MA, is one of the safest communities in America? We're going to a top-flight private school, and I didn't check between your legs, but I'm a virgin again! This is, like, the best second chance possible!
"Now, I've laid out some clothes for you - yes, I know it's a dress, you should get used to it. So, take a shower and get dressed, I'll help you. After that, we've got to start looking for our new folks - school starts on Tuesday, so we've got to be 'back' by then." She did the little finger-quotes around "back".
"But--"
"Listen, we've got to go back - maybe we'll change back before that happens, but maybe we won't. If we don't, then we're just two unsupervised teenage girls far from home. Now, you say that after you sent that email in, they sent back a username and password for the blog, right? You should post what happened to us on there; maybe one of the other visitors knows why there's no sign of the new Don and Jillian Lasker."
So that's what I've been doing, although it's taking me longer than I expected - Arlene is ready to go out and start asking if people have any idea what's going on, but I felt it necessary to include all the details, and it takes me a bit longer to write in English. We're heading out now; I hope we find something useful.
-Marc
He had reason to do so; when I left the Inn last night, I was aiming to sin. I was going somewhat crazy hanging around the inn, waiting for a call. I spent some time on the beach reading a book, mildly diverted when some high school kids set up a net to play volleyball, maybe not looking away quickly enough when I realized how young they were. I waded some in the water, came out, put on some pants and went to get some food. Then, after eating it on the pier, I went to find some place to drink.
The drinking was good - there were some places serving decent microbrews - but it was not really the goal. I was, no denying it, looking for a girl. I was not having much success, though; most of the other vacationers were couples or families, and the ones from the rest who weren't immediately turned off by the gray at my temples were in a group that they didn't want to separate from. At about midnight I decided I had had enough; I started to stand when a woman sat down at the bar beside me.
She was a bit younger than myself - in her mid-thirties, although she was wearing a lot of cosmetics to cover up that they maybe hadn't been easy years. Or maybe she was trying to look younger, and it wasn't quite working. She had dirty blonde hair, a tight black dress that manhandled her breasts into perching high on her chest, and boots that had a stiletto point to their heels. She smiled at me, expecting me to buy her a drink.
I sighed. "So it's come to this," I said.
She smiled a little wider, probably to avoid scowling. "It's not so bad. You're looking for something and I can supply it."
We haggled a bit on the price, but not long. I did want what she was offering, after all. I paid for the drinks, and took Arlene back to the Inn.
There were a couple of vagrants sitting on a bench nearby, and they made some whistling noises at her as we walked past them. She shivered a little as we crossed the threshhold - it is starting to get chilly at night - and then we went to my room. And then we started.
As one might expect from a professional of her experience, Arlene was good. She started with her mouth, and then we moved to the bed. She had learned a lot of tricks, and I don't want to describe what we were doing when half-past two came around. Both our eyes were closed, but she was yelling "oh god", and as this feeling of becoming lighter flowed over me, her voice became higher. I felt myself going limp, so I tried to thrust deeper, but it did not good. I opened my eyes and was shocked by what I saw - where before I would have put Arlene in her mid-thirties, the girl making those noises was a teenager!
Without looking or thinking, I grabbed the feet that were digging into my armpits by the ankles and shoved her off me. She fell off the end of the bed and hit the floor with a thump. "Ow! What was that for?" She hauled herself up over the foot of the bed, intending to look angrily at me, only to have her jaw drop in shock. I was looking at much the same thing, and having much the same reaction.
I had gotten a bit of a tan over the past week, but now my skin was black. A deep, chocolate black all over, only a little lighter on the palms of my hands and soles of my feet. My belly was gone, as was my body hair, for the most part, with the exception of a small patch near my new vagina. I had the firm teenage breasts to match it, and my limbs and belly had also grown slender, like a girl's.
Arlene looked scared. "Look," she said, "I don't know how you made yourself look white, or older, or like a man, but I don't do kids. I'll do a lot of other stuff, but I draw the line at that!"
"Moi non plus!" I'd slipped into French out of shock, and she looked confused. "I don't do kids either!"
She looked down then, grabbing at her now much-smaller breasts. She saw that her pubic hair indicated that she was now a natural blonde, pulled some of the finer hair growing from her head in front of her eyes, and then ran to the bathroom to see her new face in the mirror. "I'm a girl again... Frenchy, what did you do?"
"I don't know!" Then I remembered what I'd read on the Inn's website which I had dismissed as fiction. I told her what I gathered from it; she actually smiled. "So, I'm not Arlene Randall any more. I wonder who I am!"
She opened the closet but didn't find anything. "You said there are supposed to be suitcases with new lives in them! Where are they?"
"Je ne sais... I do not know! You say we're teenagers; maybe our parents were staying in the next room, and the suitcases would be there?"
She considered that, and nodded. "Good idea, Frenchy." She ran, naked, from the closet, back to the bathroom that connected this room with the next. I fastened a couple of buttons on my shirt, which was now, distressingly, large enough to cover all that needed covering and followed her. While she was banging on the locked door, I caught a look at my new face in the mirror. Kind of pretty, I guess, though I banished that thought from my mind - she was too young for me to think that about, even if she was me. I did note her tangled hair and full lips, though.
Arlene was getting nowhere. I put my hand on her shoulder. "Mademoiselle Randall, I don't think there's anybody in there. I've been here all week and have not heard or seen anybody there."
"Well, our new parents have to be somewhere!" She stormed back in the room, slid on her panties, and then slipped back into her dress. One of the shoulder straps immediately dropped to her elbow, so she stepped out of it and walked over to my suitcase and pulled out a t-shirt. "Do you mind? Thanks." She had it on before I could answer, and then was out the door, banging on the door of the room across from mine. I hurriedly slipped back into my pants, and even with the belt tightened to it's last stop, I had to hold them up to keep from tripping over the cuffs as I followed her out into the hallway.
Screams followed after every door she banged on, but it got the job done. Within minutes, everyone was up and gathered in the lobby. I mention what I'd read here, and a couple others say they saw it, too, but hadn't thought it was real. We looked around, but didn't see any couples that looked likely to be either her new parents or mine. While she was talking, I did a head count... And there were only eleven.
As the others dispersed back to their rooms to find their suitcases, Arlene and I ran around the building, looking for any place where two more people could be, but we couldn't find them. We eventually found the person who'd been transformed into the biggest guy and had him kick down the door (after discovering that our new forms were not up to the task, of course).
There were, as expected, four suitcases to be found in the empty room. Arlene discovered her new name was Heidi Lasker, and that the names of Heidi's parents were Don and Jillian. They seemed to be a fastidious family - all the clothes in the suitcases were freshly cleaned and folded, and they had even taped photographs to them so that we would know which belonged to which. It was with no small amount of trepidation that I opened mine, and read the letter enclosed.
To the new Betty Okonkwo:
When I won the essay-writing contest that allowed me to come to school in America, I knew it would change my life, but not as much as it did. I am not sure how well I will fit into my new life yet, but I can at least tell you about mine.
My name is Betty Okonkwo; I was born on 15 October 1992, in Lagos, Nigeria. I have no brothers and sisters that I know of, but since I have not seen my father in over ten years, it is certainly possible that I do. I have always done well at school and have applied for many scholarships in the past; to be chosen for a full scholarship at a private school in Massachusetts was a dream come true. I would have to live with a host family, which is where the Laskers come in; they graciously volunteered to house me while I attended school with their daughter Heidi.
I have always particularly excelled in my science courses, and though many of my neighbors back home use "witchcraft" as an explanation for everything, my mother raised me to be skeptical of such claims. Now, seeing what this place has done, I wonder.
As yet, I have no friends here other than Heidi, and I am glad that I will continue to stay with both her and her parents; other people at this place were not so lucky. Mr. Lasker believes that it is possible for us to return to our true forms if we were to return to the Inn in reverse order from how we stayed, so I would request that you not allow my grades to suffer; as you are likely an American and an adult, it should hopefully not be too difficult for you to maintain my modest achievements.
I hope that my life is not too much of a disappointment,
Betty Okonkwo
There were other things in there - clothes, a Nigerian passport, a key to the Laskers' house in Newton, and a reminder that classes would start this coming Tuesday, 8 September. I dropped to the bed, almost unable to absorb it, and suddenly exhausted; it was, after all, past three in the morning by then. The adrenaline drained from me, and I would have fallen asleep right there, but Arlene led me back to my room.
When I woke up again, at around ten o'clock, she was already dressed in some of Heidi's clothes, and had tied her hair back in a ponytail. "Hey, sleepyhead! Are you ready for the first day of your new life?"
I protested; we couldn't just pretend to be these girls.
"Why not? I don't know if you've noticed, but we're young, cute, and while Heidi's parents aren't rich-rich-rich, I googled their address - that's a nice spot in the suburbs. Did you know Newton, MA, is one of the safest communities in America? We're going to a top-flight private school, and I didn't check between your legs, but I'm a virgin again! This is, like, the best second chance possible!
"Now, I've laid out some clothes for you - yes, I know it's a dress, you should get used to it. So, take a shower and get dressed, I'll help you. After that, we've got to start looking for our new folks - school starts on Tuesday, so we've got to be 'back' by then." She did the little finger-quotes around "back".
"But--"
"Listen, we've got to go back - maybe we'll change back before that happens, but maybe we won't. If we don't, then we're just two unsupervised teenage girls far from home. Now, you say that after you sent that email in, they sent back a username and password for the blog, right? You should post what happened to us on there; maybe one of the other visitors knows why there's no sign of the new Don and Jillian Lasker."
So that's what I've been doing, although it's taking me longer than I expected - Arlene is ready to go out and start asking if people have any idea what's going on, but I felt it necessary to include all the details, and it takes me a bit longer to write in English. We're heading out now; I hope we find something useful.
-Marc
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