Burt (Lisa): Boundaries

Nobody's overly happy with the situation we've found ourselves in. Out of all the people I've heard about from this blog, very few of them have had to live with someone who knew your body's original owner... had to deal with that on a daily basis. Shaun and I are still sharing an apartment, and while logistically it's a bit of a drag, it's an arrangement both of us are comfortable to maintain, I think. To be honest, no matter who I am, Shaun needs a friend right now. We've talked a good deal, and he's taken me into his confidence. As you on the blog know, he was recently dumped by his fiancee when he became Doug, and from then on he had to pretend to be married. And while that sounds like a relief, it's incredibly stressful to assume that role in someone's life without any prior knowledge, and going from one situation to the other like that may make it hard to access the emotions the other person expects. For the first few weeks of our arrangement, Shaun tiptoed around me and kept checking up on me to make sure I was okay, obviously being sensitive to my transformation. Once I assured him I was okay, he started to open up a bit. It's not that he couldn't talk to Zane or Lisa about it, but I'm always there in the apartment - I don't go out much, I stay in and read or watch TV. We have dinner together often, we talk, and I know feel like I know him well, and he knows me. I've told him things about myself - things I am not yet comfortable sharing here - that explain why I don't think this is the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

Because of the way the previous renters of the Lisa and Shaun bodies behaved, we found ourselves in this situation where everyone in the world thinks we're in a relationship together. It was awkward in the beginning, because I was new to this, obviously, and the last thing I wanted to be was a "girlfriend." Luckily, I didn't have to very much, aside from the occasional meeting with his family or mine. I look back at those early days of awkwardness and laugh, what they must have thought of my body language, reclining away from him on the couch, seeming distant during conversations... if it weren't for the Inn magic, the idea that we were a couple would have seemed impossible.

But it's easier to pretend now that we have rhythm. I can kid him about things, I have stories to tell when people ask, we get along great. I still don't think I'd hold his hand in public, but that's not required. I just don't lean away from him when we're sitting side by side.

What we have is an understanding, in the place of a conventional relationship. As far as the world knows, we're "together," but he knows we are definitely not in reality, and if he wanted, he could date any woman in the world. I know it wouldn't though. From our talks, he seems determined to take time for himself before getting into a relationship again. I hope he does.

And I suppose, I could date anyone I wanted. But I haven't felt attracted to even one man (or woman) in my time here. I've been "asked out" once or twice, and my reaction is more like polite embarrassment for the person asking, and I'm thankful I have my fake "relationship" as an excuse. It's a fragile balance we have to strike. I just hope he doesn't let me impact his life too much. I don't plan on being here forever.

Burt (Lisa): It's like walking into the middle of a movie and needing an explanation

I've been sitting here for a while trying to figure out what to say for myself. I understand there's a lot of followers out there who probably know even more about this situation than me, even though I'm living it. But it's nice to know I have someone I can talk to.

First of all, Lisa, Shaun and Zane are all really nice people, and as soon as I figured out who they all were, and who I was supposed to be, we got along pretty great. Lisa seemed exasperated at first at the idea of not getting her own body back, but she knows I didn't do this on purpose. Obviously.

In preparation for my new part (so to speak) she gave me a heartening talk about how it's not that hard to fake your way through someone else's life... the "Inn's magic" does most of the work. The real task is not to disrupt the delicate balance of another person's personal life. Fair enough, I suppose. From what I've learned the previous "Shaun and Lisa" were a married couple in their real lives and decided to carry that over to their time in these bodies. The real Shaun and Lisa are understandably not pleased about the situation that leaves them, I mean us.

That's caused a certain amount of tension for me. Our living conditions are now that of a one-bedroom apartment and let's be honest, it would probably be better to have some space and time to figure this all out for myself. Shaun's been a good sport, but I sense him gritting his teeth when trying to negotiate the morning routine.

Lisa's body... hm. I'm taking it one day at a time. I have sisters so I'm aware of the level of maintenance a female body requires. It's a good body, roughly my own age, holding up well without much "extra." Lisa is a pretty practical woman, so it's not like her wardrobe is full of oversexualized or even embarrassingly feminine attire. For comfort's sake, I've been favoring dresses and low cut tops in this summer heat. They definitely have an advantage there, and this is coming from a California guy!

I definitely feel odd getting home at night and unclasping my bra, letting "the girls" out as I prepare for bed... it feels almost naughty that I have this body to myself even though (as Lisa often points out) it's hardly in "pinup" condition. But quite frankly, it's nothing to be ashamed of, as far as women go. Good shape.

I haven't discussed my feelings about it much with Lisa, but hopefully she understands there are certain... views I'm entitled to as current tenant of her body.

Does that sound weird? I sound weird don't I. Don't mind me. I'm not here to make trouble. Really. You'll get that about me.

Lisa/Zane: Picking up from there...

"Lisa/Zane." Oh, my God, even after all the stuff we've been through with this Inn, I never expected I would be typing a phrase like that.

I couldn't spend too much time taking inventory, when Shaun called me over to show me what had become of Anthony's "substitute." I don't know why both of us sort of assumed Zane was in my body, since Anth's was between us, and if I took Zane's, then the person next to Shaun would have to be "me."

But going back even further, to the conversation Zane and I had that, I guess, lasted long enough into the night that our transformations kickstarted without us knowing it... I was so pissed off at Anthony. Even moreso now, but even then. Look, none of us have great lives. I'm struggling, Zane's chronically unemployed, and Doug left his life as something of a mess. A year away wasn't likely to make things better for any of us, but Anthony opting out, and leaving us with a new person to explain this whole shitty situation... that was a dick move. And I had to rant to somebody, and Zane and I had been getting on so well all week that s/he was my go-to. If I had been in Shaun's room, maybe I'd be in my own body.

Maybe I'd be in his body, and he'd be in mine. Still a crappy situation, but one we could explain easier.

So we're all faced with this complication, with Burt in my body. Zane, by process of elimination, is now Anthony. When I came to his door, and I said who I was, he got this perverse grin, this shit-eating grin Anthony sometimes gets that makes me want to punch him. It's all very "no time to explain."

So we gathered in Burt's room, where I have the very surreal visual, like watching myself on video doing something I don't remember... it's "me" sitting on the bed, draped in a much larger man's clothes, hair looking stringy, face puffy from lack of sleep. Ugh, I could hardly look.

But Shaun took the leadership role, being the one who wasn't in the wrong body.

He stammered a while. "You're um... you used to be... uh... you're not..."

"Who are you people?" Burt finally asks.

"My name is Shaun," he says, "And this is Zane, and, and, uh, Lisa." I had to hide my eyes.

"What happened to me?"

"It happened to all of us," Shaun answered, "Um, what we know, uh, we don't know everything about this, but, see, the Inn has some kind of curse on it... it's been going on for years. It takes your body... and it gives it to someone else."

I'll spare you the rest of the details. I don't know if I could have explained it any better, but there was so much backtracking and elaborating and contradicting in his explanation it probably made things a lot worse.

Like I said, the thing I hated the most is that we had to explain it.

But basically, we rambled through the whole story of how we found out about the inn last year, spent a year living in these other bodies, and made it back year later.

"But... I'm a woman."

"Yeah... um, see, it's not exact." He gestured to me, "Lisa was supposed to get her body back, but somehow it didn't go... as planned."

Burt was doing weird things, like running his fingers through my hair, trying to piece it all together in his head.

"I have to be a woman for a year... and you people... all went through this already?"

"Look, take your time with it," Shaun said, "This happens a lot, apparently, so... like, just try not to freak out too hard. It's gonna be okay."

I couldn't have done better. It was terrible, but I couldn't have done better.

We had a similar, slightly more well thought out version of the same discussion several times later that day. No one looks to be facing any tragedy in this case. I think a lot of the visitors in the previous block were at a bachelor party - mostly men - whereas half the inn this week was a singles mixer, so... there were a few other women who became guys.

I guess there's a lot to cover here, but I get really weird when I try to write too much of it, which is sorta why I never wrote here too much. I'm trying to get over it, though, because obviously this whole transformation game isn't over for me!

-Lisa...Zane... LiZane.

Shaun: Aftershocks

I don't think any of us, for a year, considered the possibility of not going back to the Inn.

Ethically, none of us wanted to. I had stolen another man's wife. Lisa had stolen a girl's youth. Zane had inherited some very real problems. And Anthony, we all knew, had some level of guilt for bringing us to the Inn. Whenever I spoke to him all year, he's mentioned feeling like it was his responsibility to get us back safe and sound.

Failure was not an option. And as shocking as it was to see Anthony's post, eventually we accepted that he did what he did for us. I wish he would have discussed it with us beforehand, but we can see his reasons for keeping it a secret.

Zane was the most amused. "I can't believe that bitch didn't tell me!" she laughed. "She knows how pissed off Wes was when I said I'd be taking this trip without him. I would've loved to see the look on his face when he saw me grow my cock back."

"So what do we do?" Lisa asked. "Do we, like... go introduce ourselves to him? Or do we just wait for the transformation to explain everything?" She had a point... for at least a year, this person was going to look like our friend. And yet part of me didn't want to see what he looked like, didn't want to face the reality of what we were doing to his life. Didn't want to humanize him.

Besides, we couldn't have warned him his life was about to be turned upside down. In fact, none of us could have known exactly how badly it was going to be turned upside down.

We didn't have to wonder too long, actually. That was the night it happened. The others can describe you their experiences transforming "back," being "ready" for it as ready as you can be... mind was subtle, like being in a warm bath I guess. My skin started to get irritated, then all of a sudden late that night, I had a bit less hair and a bit more of a gut. That's it.

When I was sure it was happening to me, I rushed next door. I know there's some kind of location aspect of who-becomes-who, but once the process was started, I knew. it would be safe to leave my room.

We had four rooms all lined up. To my left was Lisa's room. Beside that was supposed to be Anthony, and on the other side was Zane. Knowing how "out of it" Zane could get, I figured I should go talk to Lisa right away to discuss how to explain our situation to the new Anthony. So I gathered my thoughts, checked to make sure my own changes were finished (right down to the scar on my elbow from when I was ten!) and went over to Lisa's room and knocked. The door opened a crack. Someone looked out at me.

It wasn't Lisa.

When they saw who I was, they opened the door wide, but stayed behind it. "Get in, quick," the voice said.

I turned to see Zane, standing with his back against the wall, wrapped in bedspread.

"Zane? What are you doing in--"

"It's not Zane," he cut me off. He lowered his eyes to the ground. "It's Lisa."

I stared. I felt faint. Despite all our preparations something had gone wrong. Even though I knew I was back in my own body, I was hurt - disappointed, shocked, annoyed - that this had happened.

Lisa began to pace around, frantically explaining - she had gone to Zane's room for a talk. They'd been spending a lot of time together since the trip began, Zane had opened up to her all about his experience as Clara and they bonded. They ended up talking way into the night and hadn't even realized the transformation must have started when Lisa went back to her room... only to be rudely awakened by growing a, er... Zane-part.

I can't even speak to that.

Lisa, however, handled it as only a minor frustration. As much as this was a failure in our plan, at least we knew what was happening. There was somebody next door who needed our help.

I told Lisa to go see what was up with Zane when she was ready, and meet me at "Anthony's" room. I figured it would be reassuring for Zane to see his own face if he ended up in Lisa's body, and that hopefully this next year would be less traumatic than the last.

I went over to introduce myself to "Anthony." Anth had left us with this unfortunate task of bringing this person into the "Inn" world - explaining what we know about the Inn, including how it's possible to change back. I kept going over the words in my head, trying to figure out the exact right angle to come at it.

I knocked on the door. No answer. "Listen, if you can hear me--" I shouted at the door, "I know something has happened to you in there, and I need to explain it to you. It's not... it's no big deal, please don't freak out..."

The doorknob turned.

And there she was. Lisa.

Or, somebody in Lisa's body. Looking at me with murder in her eyes.

That would be Burt Cobb, the 31-year-old man Anthony had intended to give his body.

Suddenly I completely forgot what I was going to say.