Daryl/Zee: What a Wedding!

Not mine, although I was wondering if maybe J.T. would do something romantic and get down on one knee at some point.  Not in a way that would upstage Elaine and new-Daryl, but maybe back at the hotel, so that I could show a ring off at the Inn-people-only breakfast the next morning.  You would think he'd be ready, given that we've been dating each other in multiple shapes since before the pandemic, so it's pretty clear we're compatible and can weather a lot.  But, then again, I suppose there's nothing that would stop me from proposing, considering I was the guy in this relationship when it started.  Not sure how that would work, though - do I go out, buy a ring, and then kneel to pop the question, holding out the little box so he can take it out and put it on my finger?  Maybe there's stuff about girls proposing on YouTube or something.

But, hey, this past weekend was not about me - it was Elaine and "Dareleanor", who has done pretty well with my life even without landing Elaine.  They coincidentally wound up taking contracts with the same company, Elaine asked him if he recognized her, and she explained how the original Daryl (me) lived her life for a while and they both started gushing, excited to have someone to talk to.  That Eleanor didn't even blink about staying in her new life once she realized that nobody wanted it back even though she'd been a white woman says something about just how completely they clicked, and they apparently didn't feel the need to wait once they figured that out.

I came out to Chicago a few days before J.T., in part because Dareleanor wanted some help with the more far-flung relatives that he hadn't met but whom my mother said had to be invited.  Someday I'll talk about how it wasn't just falling for J.T. that convinced me to leave my life behind - there are a lot of complicated feelings there, so Dareleanor and I decided not to try and do a "major life event lets you tell the truth" thing with them while things were going well - but he just needed a whole lot of information supplied on short notice, which I was able to help with.

He looked good in his tux, and Elaine looked amazing in her dress.  She found some time to hang out with me, although it was kind of weird:  I've been both of them, but only barely met either.  I'm important to them, because without me they would never have met, but I'm kind of like a storm that shut down the airport while they were in the bar waiting for different flights or something like that, an outside force-of-nature that you're glad happened but don't necessarily think well of.

It was also kind of fun to have some other Inn folks around as part of the wedding.  J.T. looked damn good in his tux, and he's famous enough that there were some murmurs running through the reception:  How do Elaine and Daryl know him?  Oh, they don't, he's with Zee.  Well, who is this Zee - I've never met her!  Although, they thought, maybe I did at some point, because she seems to know all our names!  I met most of them in my original life, when I was dating J.T./Elaine, and then in the brief time I was Elaine (I went to Marisa's wedding!), but none of them knew Zee.  They probably just assumed I had a better memory than average for casual acquaintances, which is actually true and helpful when you're parachuting into other people's lives.

Aside from that, Cary came with Krystle/Mackenzie (who gave me a look when I called her "Mackrystle" that suggests I not call her that to her face again), and the hug Elaine gave him must have made the actual father of the bride jealous.  She also gushed over how much Krystle had grown in the past few years and winked at what a pretty young woman she'd become, laughing when the apparent red-headed teen said it was a relief that she could pull off the dress she was wearing.  Some of my younger cousins danced with her and it was kind of funny because Krystle hasn't forgotten her first life and they were not expecting a 16-year-old white girl with freckles from Maine to have the moves she does.  There must be some fun videos where she is just this crazy white-and-red spot in the middle of all the Black teenagers.

I mentioned that to her when we all got together for a Sunday Inn Veterans brunch, and she laughed, saying she hoped nobody was watching that and asking whether she'd ever been on a pole.  Surprisingly, that was kind of the highlight of the thing, because we didn't actually have that much to talk about.  It wasn't a waste of time, because even if you've been in a life long enough to make it yours and not think about going back or worry about screwing something up, it's kind of a relief to know you won't have to come up with a weird explanation or remember a previous lie in a conversation.

J.T. and I stayed in Chicago for another couple days after the wedding, revisiting places we knew from our own time here, whether as Daryl or Elaine. which was fun if kind of surreal.  One restaurant was just as good as I remembered it, but that the owner who always knew everybody's name had never met me was sad.

Then, in a crazy coincidence, Harmon/Alisha was our flight attendant on the way back to New York!  It's not entirely surprising - (s)he's relocated there, back to crashing with the new Magda, who is apparently more willing to act the mother while asking little of her "daughter", and this is apparently a better place to be part of influencer/YouTube/Instagram culture than Oakland (on top of there not being much chance to transfer to L.A.) - but definitely a bit surreal to know that the woman with the short skirt and tight top who was assigned to making sure the folks in first class were satisfied used to be a top economist.

-Zee

Daryl/Magda: Settling In?

I spent a couple days in April apartment-hunting with "Junah", who waited until the last minute to find a place for the summer and next school year because he was so busy just trying to live his new life without a while lot of help from anyone other than me, and while I haven't lost touch with being black or a man, college just seems like another world already.  Has it changed so much in ten years, or do you just forget?

Not that she needed my experience as a black man so much as my current self.  I was basically standing in for Jonah's parents, who still haven't come to terms with him deciding to stay his daughter's mother, or with a former white woman living his life, so while they're okay co-signing a lease, they don't want to be involved, and a young black guy looking for a place near campus is not going to have the easiest time of it.  So I pull a pantsuit out of the closet, come along and let people assume I'm his mother and he's either mixed-race or adopted.

It was weird.  I know some folks who, in my position, might get a kick out of puffing themselves up and acting like they're going to call the Better Business Bureau or something if they don't get what they want, or smile at new-Jonah finding out just how many different levels of racism there are, but it's pretty hollow.  I think we both kind of feel like we've exchanged one set of obstacles for new ones we aren't quite so sure how to navigate, and it gives us a bit of common ground with each other. 

The pronouns probably got confusing there, but that's Inn Person life to an extent.  Jonah sees himself as a guy living Krystle's life, and while he won't correct "she" all the time, it feels wrong to him.  Juliet, maybe because he's older and because he chose this life much more affirmatively than Jonah did.  He figures he's become a man, so he's a man.

And give him credit, he's been working hard to see what that means for him.  As much as he initially gravitated toward hanging out with his female classmates, he made an effort to do more "guy stuff", whether it's intramural sports, hitting up action movies, even going to a strip club one night.  That Jonah grew up in New Hampshire gives him pretty good cover when going to Harlem and otherwise trying out hip-hop and other black things.  It's sometimes kind of funny to watch, but he's out there trying, and you've got to respect that.  I'm not out there joining book clubs or stopping wine or otherwise trying to make a lot of middle-aged white lady friends.  And, who knows, when his brain finally gets over that "I'm old enough to there be her mother" reaction when a good-looking girl flirts with him.  That could totally drag him in a different direction.

Me, I'm still a solid "they" - woman in a lot of practical ways, but still thinking like a guy, and I think that J.T. likes me being kind of a guy at heart, that it cuts out a bunch of drama.  I kind of wonder if that will change should I spend more time around "other" folks like Magda.  Weird to think about.

Inevitable, though, considering some other recent visitors.  Elaine and not-Daryl made a quick trip here over the weekend and wanted to get dinner.  It kind of made me dizzy to see them sitting next to each other while I was next to J.T., because when you add it up, I've spent more time with "Elaine" as my girlfriend then I've spent as her and Magda combined, but I've been both of them, and though I know who's who, my brain keeps trying to see Elaine as J.T. and the other guy as me.  It's strange for him, too, although he's able to put on more of a facade of just meeting two folks he kind of knows.

And they're dating!  They didn't try to hide it, but they waited for me to comment on how they didn't need to hold hands so much, because there wasn't anybody they knew here.  Elaine said it started when she told J.T. not to say no to me, so there was definite attraction, so when she got back home and things were kind of in an unsettled place as between them as far as the world was concerned, and friends kept trying to get them back together, so when they wound up in the same place...

She trailed off with a shrug, so I turned to address my own face.  "Okay, I get her being attracted to me--"  We all laughed.  "--but I thought you had a girlfriend, and she was into it?"

"She was, and it got weird, dude.  Like, her new life was single and unemployed, so she could just move in with me, and it was fun - she became this really hot blonde - but after a while, she stopped using my name at all, even when we were home alone, saying it was just that she didn't want to slip when we were out, but, like, soon she was only listening to music from this other girl's playlists and...  Like, she's not planning to stay, but the way she was okay with assuming this whole other persona, not even looking for ways to be herself.  And, like, maybe she'd just switch back when we were ourselves again, but that she could kind of made me wonder about everything, y'know?"

"So when we meet at this business thing and we're able to get alone, and he could be himself and I had someone I could talk to about having been a white elementary school girl for a couple years, it was just this huge relief!  How are you supposed to not talk about that?  I mean, I can talk to Cary, but then it becomes about him and Krystle, which isn't his fault, but doesn't really help me deal with how this weird shit's gonna be in my head for a while!"

"Not gonna lie - it's kind of weird to find yourself attracted to a girl who sometimes talks about how something is like what happened at recess last year, but kind of special, too."

I look from one to the other.  "Is this an 'I want to stay like this' thing?"

He looked shocked.  "No!  The opposite - we didn't want you to hear it from someone else and get the wrong idea!  We weren't sure how well what you've got is working--"

Elaine elbowed him, but I said that was fair.  "I mean, there are challenges, but we're pretty happy."  I suddenly had a thought.  "I should text Pete."

My face looked surprised.  "You already promised him, uh, this?"

"I've brought it up, but he...  Well, he says a lot of things.  'Why would I want the body you abandoned?'  He'll joke about just getting used to being a girl, or say it's different when it's someone you know, but I kind of just think he's been bouncing around long enough that he finds it hard to commit."  My hand was next to J.T.'s, and he squeezed it, prompting me to lean over for a kiss.  "Anyway, he keeps in touch with a lot of people and has been asking around about something, well, a little more like you."  Elaine blushed as I looked at her.  "It may be destiny that I became someone J.T. could date, but maybe we could adjust it a bit.   People do talk about him and the older woman, and I haven't had a lot of luck looking for a better job."

"Hey, maybe y'all just aren't casting your net wide enough!"  Elaine pointed at her boyfriend.  "C'mon, I know you fell for this once, and maybe having been to the Inn stretches who you can be after.  I mean, everything you did and felt as me is still part of you, right?"

J.T. took a drink.  "I'd never know if we were trying to make it work, though.  Like, I pretend for a living, and I know that this is real, y'know, the way being yourselves will keep you sure what you've got is real."

"I get that.  Just wondering, since it took me so long to get home."

We finished our meal and then they went to their show.  We saw a movie and then went home. 

It was great to see them, at least.  It was a pretty good reminder that this year's Inn season is coming up fast, and even if I don't wind up changing, there's a lot of people who will have their lives turned upside-down - or right-side-up, as the case may be.

-Magdaryl

Daryl/Magda: One Hot Mama

I'm a relatively new Inn Person, so I haven't talked with many in the community, but it feels like what I am trying to do right now - changing and then immediately trying to start my own new life on my own terms - it's pretty rare.  That's natural - most people, upon having their identity torn from them, aren't going to say "what would I do with a clean slate?" even if their new face didn't come with a letter asking them not to mess things up.  But a life's got inertia to it, too, and just picking up and starting over isn't easy even when you can.

And I didn't know if that was going to be the case when I got back to the Inn.  The room hadn't changed since I left it but I was acutely aware that there was no leftover bag in the room to tell me what I had in store.  I tried to be chill about it - like, okay, if these are going to be my last days as a woman, try a few things, like having a spa day or putting on a kind of sexy dress and doing some light flirting at a bar, not looking to get picked up, but just to see what it's like to be on the other end of some guy's game, maybe be more empathetic later.  Don't get me wrong, I brought along pepper spray, but thankfully didn't need it.

Still, it was a nerve-wracking week or so, knowing that I was going to come out of it as neither myself nor Elaine, but I could be pretty much anyone else.  It was a relief when I finally felt the tingle other folks talked about, although I couldn't stay up for the change; it had been a long day that ended with a few drinks.

I didn't really feel different when I woke up until I saw that my arm was white.  And not just Caucasian-white, but "Eastern European girl who hasn't been out of the house all winter" white.  I knew that was the way to bet - Jonah becoming Krystle probably used up all the odds of one black person becoming another by random chance in this place, given how white Maine is - but, man, that is a hell of a thing to be confronted with.  I felt like I'd lost something profound in that moment, even more so than when I watched Elaine's breasts grow out of my chest.

And speaking of breasts, yeah, as soon as I'd examined my hand enough to think about how weird it was that the designs on my nails were now kind of off-center, I sat up in bed and let the sheet drop away from my chest.  I could already feel just from sitting up that I was still a woman, but sometimes you need to see it.  My breasts had grown a bit and sagged a bit overnight, and the darker space around my nipples was a bit bigger.  They're not bad at all, and when I copied them in my hands they felt pretty solid, but not as close to perky as is been as Elaine.

The rest of my body was like that too - a bit softer around the waist, a bit more spread to my butt, more in the thighs.  I did feel weirdly guilty about the shape I'd left my bush in for Elaine when I saw how nearly trimmed I was down there (I was kind of skittish with the razor). After I'd seen all I could from that angle, I went to the mirror.

Not a bad new face.  Some lines around the eyes and dimples that tried to make up for the fact that it didn't seem to smile quite as wide, brown hair that was thinner than Elaine's but not really thin, decent lips.  I pegged myself at about forty or so, which was disappointing, but doable.

There was noise outside the room, so I figured it was time to find out how things had shaken out.  Elaine's clothes mostly fit, although I wouldn't recommend going up a bra size or two overnight (the amazing cleavage doesn't really make up for the straps digging into your skin), so I want like the guy in a way-too-small bathrobe trying to figure out what had happened.  It was a weird scene, 'cause by the time July rolls around most of the "reversal chains" have broken and it's just people who don't know what they're in for.  I explained what little I knew about the situation five times while asking if anybody had a suitcase that looked like it belonged to a middle-aged white woman in their room. 

Nobody did, but someone was able to get into one connected by an adjoining bathroom, and I found my new identity.  My eyes went kind of wide at the driver's license I pulled from the purse, because on the one hand, damn, Magda Polawski, you're doing pretty darn all right for almost 48, but on the other, that's almost two full decades lost on my part.  Then I got to the letter which Lindsey had left me, which spent a lot of time filling me in on Harmon but kind of soft-sold that Magda's life was mine, free and clear, should I want it.

None of the people at the Inn, looking at a year of trying to live someone else's life, really wanted to hear me talk about how that's some monkey's paw shit, but Cary and Elaine at least put on a good show of being sympathetic.  I mean, yeah, I want to make things work with J.T., but 47-year-old white woman isn't exactly easy mode.

But you've gotta try, right?  Lucky for me, Lindsey left me notes about how to "deadhead" on a flight, so I got to fly to New York for free.  I watched a bunch of YouTube videos about making yourself look younger via makeup before flying out and then got my hair done as soon as I landed.  Lindsey, not knowing who was going to become Magda, had traveled to Maine with a bunch of different clothing options, but probably didn't figure on someone like me being grateful for a little black dress and matching four-inch heels.

Heck, it was surreal to me as I changed in a food court restroom and then did what I could with the makeup, texting with J.T. about dinner reservations and how, no, I wasn't going to send a selfie so he could recognize me.  But I was kind of riding high on the idea that somehow the universe was arranging things so that two people who would never have been paired two years ago could be together, kind of excited about Act III.  I must have spent a half hour on the makeup, staying completely over twice and just being real timid, but eventually I decided I didn't look too bad.

J.T. had reserved us a table at a nice restaurant, and I managed to get in and sit across from him quietly enough to make him jump.  The dress showed plenty of cleavage, so his eyes were drawn there before my face.  "Wow.  You're, uh--"

"Older?"

"I was thinking 'not Elaine', but I guess that's part of it.  You look good, though.  Really good..."  I briefly felt ashamed for how easily we guys let boobs distract us.

We spent the meal making small talk, about sports and how cute real-Elaine being excited about getting her life back was.  He mentioned that he'd had an audition the other day, well off Broadway, because he was getting excited about digging into and creating character histories again after the Inn.

It was delicious, and we took a can back to his place, as I mentioned I had no place of my own in New York, and it was too late to spring all this on Pete.  We drank some wine, and then made hilariously flimsy excuses for heading toward the bed.  It felt really good for him to unzip my dress and then undo my bra, supporting my breasts with his hands while kissing my neck.  It felt good being a little softer in his hands, and we played around a lot before I was on my back his face right above mine, him entering me, both of us excited but kind of terrified about what might come next.

About that, let's just say that the over-sharing ladies at a previous job were maybe onto something when they told us embarrassed millennials that a woman's body doesn't really figure out how to princely orgasm right away.  I was like, well, shit, that part works when we got done.

Of course, I couldn't just stay there right away - Magda had a job, a lease, and a biological daughter on the other side of the country, and I couldn't just abandon them without causing trouble.  So, just a day later, I was flying "back" there to figure out how I could easily get myself back in that bed on a permanent basis.

Naturally, Harmon and I met when I was going through Magda's closet, trying to figure out which clothes to keep and which to give away.  As much as I had fun pushing my boobs into J.T.'s face that first night, there was some stuff theft which had either been there a long time or which probably was the result of Magda still seeing a younger woman in the mirror.  I may look somewhere halfway between my real age and what my new passport says, but I kind of think Magda was still stuck in an even younger mindset, not quite competing with Alicia but thinking she was still that girl.

And I can see how she thinks that - there's a box of Polaroids in her closet, and young Magda had a lot of what her daughter does.  And Alicia is hot as fuck, just everything I am now but tighter and smoother.  I don't feel desire when I look at her, but I probably feel a little more appreciation than someone who currently shares half my DNA with her probably should.  On top of that, she's got this attitude to her where she knows exactly what she's got and she won't barter access to it, or even her attention, cheaply.  I've dated enough girls like that to know it gets exhausting fairly quickly, but even though I know how insanely inappropriate the thought is and how uninterested Harmon is in being someone's girlfriend, I notice.  And, yes, I couldn't help but think of the roughly twenty-five extra years I might have gained if Harmon had come to the Inn.

That he didn't pay me much mind is kind of useful,  though - if he doesn't want to play family, that's a load off me.  I can decide some stuff is going to go and just email the original Magda and Alicia about it rather than finding time to schedule talks with him.  I can ask the airline about a transfer to New York and feel confident that the option to quit is in my back pocket, because he's not attached to working with "Mom".  I can get all the way to "hey, either sign this or don't" and only feel a little bad about how losing the apartment is going to mess with his life.

That got him upset, although he really had no right; was he sure that every future Magda was going to look after him like Lindsey?  Quite honestly, I kind of think she should have put her foot down earlier, but then again, I'm not exactly the posted child for letting pay relationships go after visiting the Inn.

Still, I'm looking forward to really making a new start in New York next week.  It's crazy how much I miss J.T. already.

-Magdaryl

Cary: They Grow Up So Fast

You aren't necessarily tremendously comfortable showing your emotions when you're a man my age.  Is just not how you were brought up, and when you've spent most of your life working on conduction or on boats or just otherwise with other men raised the same way, you don't so much keep everything bottled up as you try not to do anything that throws you off the even keel, or at least that was my experience.  You might think that spending a year as a woman would disabuse me of that, but it sometimes pushed me the other way, like most emotions were fake things you did to fit in, with the only ones that were real the unease of sharing an apartment with the person who should be in your place or the fear that you would screw everything up.

I don't know that it hurt me any, in general, most of the time, but it left me utterly unprepared for the roller coaster that was Elaine getting on her bike as Mckenzie every night to ride to the Inn, staying up until three in the morning to get the test message that she was still eleven years old, and both feeling sad for her and grateful to have another day with her.  I think it was somewhat the same for her, because she would bike back to my apartment in the morning, get changed into one of the business's t-shirts we had made in her size, and set off with me for wherever the truck was to set up that day.

Folks would look at us and talk about how the little girl helping her dad was cute, and she'd smile in a way that was maybe a little knowing but maybe not, and she didn't roll her eyes the way either her 11-year-old classmates or a young woman amused by the irony would be.  She just said thank you, collected their money, and commented on how this racket was pretty good for the tip jar when everyone was gone.  Then she'd get out the laptop, search for places we'd been mentioned on social media, and drill me on liking, re-tweeting, updating the location, and how to update the truck's website like it was two years ago and she was going to make sure I didn't stumble in her high heels during a job interview.

It's been a weird couple years for both of us.  Her, mostly, over the past year, especially once school started.  She'd spent the previous year pretending she wasn't a kid, no matter how many times she fell asleep on the couch or got a look as she looked at the menu in a restaurant, but once the state said I was looking after her, and she had a schedule to keep, she fell into it.  Oh, teachers praised how incredibly organized she was for a fifth-grader, and what a quick reader she was, but at first they said she seemed antisocial.  Only to be expected, given that she was abandoned by her parents and forced to start over in a new town, but it was something they were watching.

Then she stopped just short of giving a bloody nose to some boy who didn't expect the quiet redhead to take such umbrage to him taunting the class's one black kid about him not being able to swim or some such.  She was horrified when she got home, because it didn't matter whether he was bigger or that he thought she was ten, she'd almost hit a kid.  But the next day, for all the kids who have "psycho girl" a hard time, there were a few who admired her, and soon they were sitting with her at lunch, asking to hang out after school (jealous that I almost always said yes and not knowing we had a code word for when she needed me to say no), wondering where she'd learned hip-hop dance and starting to do it together.  It was weird having ten- and eleven-year-olds as friends, she said, but she also kind of enjoyed knowing where she stood all the time.

And while you might think having a kid who is basically a small adult makes for easy parenting, you still have to change your life, and not just because social workers are looking over your shoulder every once in a while.  There's got to be food in the house, so the grocery store becomes a routine rather than a place you stop when something runs out.  When plans fall apart, you've got to be there to pick her up.  You've got to make a show of doing things she can do herself.  Heck, you don't just bring her the doctor and dentist, but you figure out how to have better insurance because she'll be in trouble if you get sick.  It sounds like a hassle, but it feels pretty good, believe it or not.

So when the phone's runtime jolted me awake at 2:48am, I felt an initial bit of sadness when I got the text saying "ME AGAIN! !!", but smiled when I saw the selfie of her with a big grin, her child's t-shirt held in front of her in a full-size version.  Then she said she was going to get some sleep and met me at the truck later.

She wasn't wearing the t-shirt when she did, but a nice blue sundress.  "Looks like Daryl left you something nice to wear."

"Oh, please!  I've been shopping.  You boys tried your hardest, but none of you really had my taste.  I mean, c'mon--" she lifted a foot clad in a sandal that had obviously fake stones on the leather strap that ran from her toes to her ankle.  "-- none of you ever went for anything this sparkly!"

I laughed.  "I guess we didn't.  Looks good on you, though."

"Thank you."  She did a little half bow and then saw my gaze lingering.  "You aren't gonna come on to me, are you?  Because aside from how it's going to take more than a few hours for me to not be grossed out by guys thinking of me as sexy, or how three of the four men living my life decided that they just HAD to take my vagina out for a spin - assuming you didn't do anything in a supply closet you didn't tell me about--"

"No!  I'm just looking at you all put together for the first time.  I've seen all this in the mirror and on Max, J.T., and Daryl, and I've gotten to know you pretty well, but this is just, you know, right."

She hugged me then, burying her face into my chest.  "You have no idea how good it is to hear you say that.  After a couple years, you wonder if you're just not that person any more, especially when you hear about all the others that don't go back the first chance they get..."  She wiped her nose and pulled back.  "You make a pretty good dad, you know."

"Nah, I just showed up when you needed someone to show up."

"Which puts you ahead of a lot of fathers.  As does telling a girl they can get through something when she really needs to hear that."

I shrugged.  "You got a dad for that."

"I do, and I think I'd really like to see him.  And Mom.  And even Whitney, though she's got a ton to answer for!"

We laughed, and I told her I would be quite happy with just being her friend from then on.  She said she'd like that, kissed me on the cheek, and then offered to get me dinner, but I told her to go see her family and friends and wouldn't take no for an answer.

* * *

Of course, that's not the end, as I got home this evening to find "Mackenzie Mahoney" sitting on the couch, feet up on the coffee table, asking what was for dinner.  I said I wasn't rightly sure, but some introductions were probably in order first.

She shrugged.  "Fine.  I'm Mackenzie.  I used to be Krystle Kamen, but the n---- in my life got knocked up and now he all about bein' a mom.  Ain't gonna live my life as him or any man - don't get me wrong, it's got its perks, but it ain't for me - so I figure this is the freshest start I can get.  We cool?"

"Sure, although your teachers won't be if you show up at school dropping the n-word and using that grammar.  Elaine--"

"Let's get one thing straight - just because we're both black females underneath this skin don't mean we're the same.  You and I, we're both starting over, and I don't care what kind of Mackenzie Elaine was - this is my life now."

You could tell this was going to be different already.  When I showed up in Elaine's life, she took charge, but it made sense.  When she showed up in mine, we knew we were going to be partners.  This seemed different, like Krystle wants my help but certainly doesn't want me to be her father.

"Look, we're going to have to work together on this, and part of that means you've got to trust me on some things.  You show up to middle school talking like that, they're going to wonder what happened over the summer.  Maybe the state figures I was the problem and places you with someone who won't believe who you are and take it into consideration.  Do you want that?"

She stared at me for a second, sizing me up.  "You a bit more ready for me than I thought from how nice Elaine said you were, ain't ya?  Fine, I'll talk like a little white girl, at least around other people.  How's this?  'Can we have pasketti for supper, daddy, pweeeeeease?'"

I can't say I'm sure I agree with being ready for her - it's really just starting to hit me now that this thing I signed up for to help Elaine for a year potentially has another seven until "Mackenzie" graduates high school.  I'll be collecting Social Security by then, and who knows what else could change?

I don't mind helping - Krystle has kind of gotten a raw deal herself, after all - but I'm not sure what a gal like that trying to be pre-teen is going to be like as a roommate compared to Elaine just hiding out.

-Cary

Daryl/Elaine: Time to Find Out

This is almost certainly a bad idea, but it's too late to turn back now, and if I didn't do it, I'd be second-guessing myself for the rest of my life, but, Jesus, it seems like a crazy leap.

It makes a little more sense if you know a bit about what I left out of the last update.  We were "just being friends", but we kind of played at being more.  Not by getting all syrupy in public or anything, but whenever something would strike as kind of ironic or funny considering our situation, we'd break out some exaggerated way of talking, with me playing the boyfriend half the time.  It was a joke, but it was also a way to accept that we were in a weird situation.

So, Tuesday, it's hot as hell in New York, enough that J.T. had actually mentioned that he missed booty shorts and a halter top being a viable outfit for him, and I decided, what the heck, only a few days of this left, and if anyone got a picture, it wouldn't stick to me.  That's kind of the funny thing about being turned into your girlfriend - it's actually not hard to make yourself all sexy in the mirror, even if you do wind up thinking that it's kind of a weird power trip at times, but stepping out the door is maybe twice as hard, because you've got both "do I want guys looking at me like that?" and "do I want guys looking at my woman like that?" going around your head.  But, it was hot, and I didn't want J.T. or Pete to think I'd chickened out.

Pete wasn't pay off the group Tuesday night, so I didn't have him to measure my drinks against (I've gotten into the habit of staying even or one drink behind him,  since he's smaller and thinner than Elaine as Brigette), and it, uh, enhanced the "singer's girlfriend" thing I was doing, so I wound up shooting "that was awesome baby!" (or, later, "woooooooooo!") rather than kind of saying it to myself.  J.T. wound up playing along, pointing at me the first time and comically rolling his eyes by the end.

Eventually, the gig ended, and I helped him move his gear to the car.  He hoped that the only thing missing from that was him inviting me up on stage.  I laugh, saying there were photographers and phones and Elaine didn't need to deal with any of that shit.  He nods, but says it's too bad, because he knows I've got the pipes for it.

It's hard to be modest, because I'd certainly complimented him when he had those pipes, and meant it.  But...  "Karaoke with friends is different than a stage in front of strangers.  Besides, those were y'all's songs, not mine."

"But you're a big part of them."

I didn't know what to say.  We'd arrived at his place, and I grabbed the guitar and mic stand while he picked up the amp.  We rode the escalator in silence, up to the tenth floor.  He unlocked it and I walked in, giving it a good look.  "So this is where you live in your real life."

It was nice, bigger than Brigette's, though not huge.  There were a couple awards on a mantel, a full-size keyboard, and a separate dining area, all fairly tidy.  I wondered how much dust had gathered while he was Elaine.

"Yep, this is me, although it's just starting to feel like home again.  And kind of plain."  He reached into the fridge and handed me a beer.

"It's nice.  Not much of my Elaine in it, though.  Or would that be your Elaine?"

"Yeah, I didn't keep any souvenirs.  Maybe I should have.  But until you showed up, I just..."  He trailed off, and then pointed at a blank space on the wall.  "Heck, I used to have a Josephine-Baker-in-Paris print over there, but I was having a hard time looking at it.  Made me remember and wonder what if."

I used the corner of my top to twist the off my bottle and took a swig before walking out onto the balcony.  "I should certainly hope you wondered what if.  I thought we had something special."

He walked up behind me.  "We did.  I told you things that I never told anybody else, and they were true, even if the facts weren't."

I laughed.  "So, basically, your parents pushed you into acting rather than math?"

"Pretty much.  Figured I'd have become a huge adult star by now, just like Wil Wheaton, Macauley Culkin, and Haley Joel Osment."

I snort-laughed.  "Obviously, you should have turned into a girl much earlier.  There's Jodie Foster, Dakota Fanning, Christina Ricci..."

"Don't think they wouldn't have considered it.  Kind of glad to be a man right now, though."

He put his hands on my shoulders, then kissed the base of my neck, and I felt my temperature go up.  "What're you doing?"

"Kissing my girlfriend.  Or maybe kissing my ex-boyfriend.  Do you like it?"

"Mm-hmm.  Of course I like it.  You're cheating, already knowing where it feels good."

"I suppose so."  His hands slid down my sides until they reached my midriff, then moved up underneath my top to cradle my breasts, gently stroking them with his thumb while each nipple rested between two fingers.  I gasped and made a half-step back, enough that I could feel him hardening when the small of my back made contact with his pelvis.  His teeth found the knot keeping my top on and disengaged it just slowly enough to build some anticipation, giving my brain just enough time to start working the buckle on my shorts.

We turned around and went back into the apartment as a unit; he instinctively knew I wasn't quite ready to be looking in a man's face while doing this yet.  Once I had pulled my shorts and panties down and planted my hands on an end table or something, he let go of one breast to work his own belt and zipper, then guided himself in from behind.  I moaned as he found my spot again and again, gently thrusting the tip of his unit over it, sending waves of pleasure through my body.  I felt something let go inside me as I came, and then he seemed to swell a bit more.

"Hang on," he said, pulling out of me and opening his wallet to find a rubber.  I didn't realize that's what he was doing, though, so I turned around, and I see his face go from being a little stained at holding back to being concerned that he'd upset me.  Something lightens in my chest and I say "put it on".  He does, and I guide him to the corner of the sofa.  I sit him down and then lower myself onto him, kissing him and then trying to find the rright rhythm as I moved up and down, thinking how is liked it when the roles were reversed, right down to his face in my rack.

It doesn't take him long to come, and he slumps back, spent.  I roll off of him and adopt a similar posture next to him, looking up at the ceiling.  "Well, fuck."

He looked concerned again.  "Did I do something wrong?"

"No, and that's the problem.  Right up until you, you know, got in there, I figured it would feel wrong, but it didn't and you were so nice, and now I know we've got something good.  But it's not like I can just steal Elaine's life!"  He shook his head in agreement and we had kind of a sad cuddle.

I must have fallen asleep there, because when I woke up I was in his bed and he was making waffles.  I figured we'd burned enough calories that Elaine wouldn't mind.  Despite all we'd done last night, it felt a little strange to kiss him before leaving to go back to Pete's place and get changed.

Pete was there and waiting for gossip.  I told him it had happened and was not what I expected, and he removed me that women always share details.  Fortunately, it was interrupted by a call from my own phone, telling me that he knew I must have gotten nervous by now, but there were more than enough people arriving at the Inn to change back tonight.

"That's good, that there are more than enough."  I took a deep breath.  "So, ______, you've been enjoying my life, right?"

"Yeah, man, and so's my girlfriend, if you know what I mean!  Heck, I'm actually kind of jealous of the job I landed for you."

"Good.  How would you like to do the full year?"

Pete's eyes billed as my voice on the other end of the phone stammered.  "What, dude, I was kidding!  Just because I said it would be weird to go home to a family of strangers... and you'd be stuck as a chick--"

"I know, it's just it turns out I've got something to see through."

"If you say so."  He tried to sound reluctant, but there was some relief in his voice.  He hadn't really been thrilled with the luggage he'd found in his room, even if he had been willing to help someone else get back to normal.

"I do."

"All right, man.  I don't get it, but all right."

We said goodbye and hung up, and Pete exploded.  "Are you crazy?  This is--"  He didn't have words.

I shrugged.  "He may be The One."

He shook his head. "That is one severe case of estrogen poisoning you've got there.  I can't even."  He was even more dumbfounded when I told him the whole plan.

Contrary to what you might expect, J.T. and I went our separate ways after the fireworks; that night was special and not to be repeated as such.  I slept at Pete's, and then got on a train to Old Orchard.

Pete was right about my head kind of overflowing with female hormones, and although I had certainly been asking for the ride, I also knew that there were a lot of people out there whose experience with the Inn does not exactly suggest that everything happens for a reason (or at least, not an obviously positive one).  But I certainly can't deny that it certainly feels like things have come together for me and J.T. in an unlikely-enough way that is hard not to talk about destiny.

So we're putting it in fate's hands.  I go to the Inn and get turned into another man, or a lesbian, or a kid, and it's not meant to be.  But if I stay Elaine, or become another woman, and there's still a spark...  Well, it's tough to argue with that.

So far, no change, and no luggage in my room, obviously.  But I've got a good feeling about this.  It didn't all happen for nothing.

-Daryl/Elaine

Lindsey: Just Me

It's a good thing that the Inn have us this extra day on our stay so that we could watch the fireworks and not be checking out on the Fourth of July, because it looks like I might not have changed back otherwise and who knows how many other people's plans would have also gone awry, but it also led me to hold out hope for one more day that Harmon would do the right thing.  But he hasn't, and now I just feel like the last few years of my life were a waste of time and I'm a damn fool.

Still, I'm me again, without a lot of fuss in managing it.  One of the nice things about Magda having worked for the same airline for over twenty years is that even though she doesn't actually get paid time off because she's hourly rather than salaried, she can still request a fair-sized chunk of vacation - say, enough to go to the Inn, fall off the map, and then return with a new person behind her face - and her employer will grumble but the job will still be waiting for her when she gets back.  That new Magda probably won't have much flexibility to take any sort of non-Inn vacation for another year, but that's how it works.  I even got to fly out here for almost nothing.

Harmon doesn't really have that luxury as Alicia; he was able to negotiate a schedule that had him working flights to and from Boston with some days off on that end, but there were a few days early in our stay when he would be SOL if he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.  In retrospect, I'm kind of surprised he didn't just quit and let the new Alicia fend for herself, but I figured he was trying to do the same thing as I was, leaving things in good shape for the next people living these lives.

(Which won't be Magda and Alicia Polawski; they like Austin, the cupcake business, being sisters, and the guys that the people who originated their new lives became.  I'm not sure how far back along the line people are happy with how things worked out, but they're not coming back.)

It made the first few days in Maine pretty relaxing; Old Orchard is a cute little town, and I hope every Inn visitor eventually gets to know Cary - the guy is just there and quietly helpful when he can be.  I kind of enjoyed his flirting with me - he's picked up on more of what it feels good for a woman to hear than he claims, although the idea that he's scared that the next person to become Mckenzie might need a strong female role model isn't necessarily the best sales pitch.  Elaine is cool too, and really looking forward to being grown up again.

It felt good and according-to-plan enough that I didn't really fret when Harmon didn't show up on the first day he was supposed to.  I texted, he mentioned a flu bug taking down a whole flight crew, meaning he was assigned to another for that day, and that made sense.  When he didn't show up three days later, halfway through our booking, I called and asked what was going on.

He didn't even have the decency to sigh or hesitate.  "I am not returning to the Inn this year."

"WHAT?"  I poked my head out of the doorway to see if anybody else at the Inn heard me yelling.  "That's ridiculous - you HATE being Alicia, and I do your laundry - I know you're not pregnant!"

"It is not ideal, no, and I hope to upgrade to a better situation next summer, but given that Cooper had damaged my reputation and I would soon be facing retirement and irrelevance, and absent any moral imperative to return Alicia's life to her--"

I cut the oncoming lecture off.  "What about your other moral imperatives?  Like, to me?"

"I had hoped to avoid a confrontation, but how could or relationship not be broken?  After the past year, I doubt you would ever see me fully as a man again, having fallen so easily into taking a maternal role."

"Uh-uh.  No, you do not get to blame me.  You think that we could no longer be together, fine, but that's on you.  I'm sure you could find another student to make you feel admired and desired; I'd totally understand if you felt you didn't need me specifically.  Our are you afraid you can't any more?  Did seeing Coop using a cane freak you out that much?"

"I would not describe myself as 'freaked out', though it did gone me the impetus to examine what might offer me the most going forward, and there are noteworthy issues related to my old life's physical decline that, when balanced against a the average result of re-visiting the Inn, or even Miss Polawski's situation, certainly suggest that abandoning the identity of Harmon Keller is my best option using the present moment as a starting point."

I just started into the phone for a second.  "How can you be so casual about that?  I mean, you're taking decades off someone else's life!  Maybe not someone at the Inn now, but sooner or later, that's going to catch up with someone!"

He sounded annoyed.  "Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  If it bothers you so much, you know what to do."  There was a pause not quite long enough for me to think of a response.  "I guess this is farewell, then, Lindsey."  And then he hung up.

I just sat there after that, finding ways to blame myself.  Did I push him into trying to enjoy his circumstances enough that he decided he could stand being Alicia?  Did I play the mom too much and make that life comfortable?  Or did I do something to anger him, with Harmon deciding that this was the best way to get back at me?  I felt so bad that I slept on Coop's side of the room that night, so that if the change hit, it would make me into the new Harmon.

Elaine was pissed to hear me say that - she's got some pretty strong opinions on beating yourself up because of what a man does on his damn own.  She's got even stronger ones on making a martyr of oneself, suggesting I make myself available for future Magdas and Harmons who are going to be dropped into the Middle of this, but telling me it is not up to me to take responsibility for a man in his sixties.

She's right, even if it's hard not to feel guilty.  I mean, I woke up feeling GOOD this morning, every ache and pain I had as Magda gone, and Best Possible Person to Live Your Life Debbie Cooper may have spent the last month in the gym before getting me a bikini wax and a cute new Louise Brooks haircut.  And of course she left me some new panties and such.  And that's just gaining about twenty years back; Harmon got nearly twice that.  I can see that being hard to let go of.

That's pretty cold comfort to the poor teenager who got stuck as Harmon, though.  Just graduated high school, having a last vacation with his folks, and, wham, forty years.  Sweet kid, but he's not hugely thrilled with being on the same flight as me, or knowing that I'm going to be the best one to help him navigate Harmon's life for a bit.  As he shouldn't be.

I hope that I'll find something valuable in this experience someday.  I was ready to say I would just a couple weeks ago, but this lady bit of selfishness by Harmon really puts a damper on it, and I really wish I'd seen this in him the same way all my friends did.

-Lindsey Curtis

Daryl/Elaine: That Went Well?

I didn't really know what I wanted out of this trip to New York when I got on the plane two weeks ago - I just knew I needed to take it, especially since just sitting in Elaine's life, waiting to be myself again, was going to drive me nuts.  It was an impulse, but a good one.

Being impulsive meant that I hadn't actually booked lodging when I made the post about going to New York, but I was lucky - Pete/Brigette has a Google alert on the blog, saw what I was doing, and immediately texted me asking if I needed an open-ended couch to sleep on (apparently, he and J.T. used to text each other white-man/black-woman stuff, so he has Elaine's cell number).  Since I was looking at hostels and thinking I wouldn't really like a lot of what I was seeing as a man, I said yes but warned him I was coming in on the red-eye.  No problem, he says - city that never sleeps.

And true to his word, there's noise on the intercom when the cab drops me off at his apartment and he buzzes me up, and his apartment is filled with good-looking people.  I must look pretty rough, because he immediately raises his voice.  "Hey bitches, this is my girl Elaine from Chicago - she all jet-lagged, so I'm gonna need y'all to scoot!"  There's a general groan, but they scoot, with lots of hugs and air-kisses on the way out.

As soon as the last one does, he plops into a chair, pulls his foot up so that his knee is sticking straight in the air - making his dress ride up and giving me a clear view of his panties - and starts working the little buckles on his fashionable five-inch heels.  "Eighteen hours in these shoes, dude, between the gallery and the club and this little after-party.  No regrets--"  (one drops to the floor and he switches legs)  "--because, honestly, I don't think I've ever actually enjoyed shopping for shoes before."  The other one dropped, and he started grabbing his toes and stretching them.  "I'm just glad those girls who said I gave good foot massages weren't kidding.  Ah, yeah!"

I got pointed to the bathroom so I could brush my teeth, pee, and slip into some pajamas, coming out to find that, though Pete didn't seem to have moved, the sofa bed was folded out and ready for me to slip into.  Which I did.

The next morning, I woke up to see Pete cleaning up from last night in booty shorts and crop top.  

"Hey, did I wake you?"

"No."

"Awesome.  Hope you don't mind, but I've already been trying to track J.T. down.  You'd think it would be easy for someone who used to be sorta kinda famous, but I guess he had stalkers or something when he was really big, and... well, you've seen how he protects his privacy.  I saw a couple things online on gossip sites about where he's had breakfast and stuff, but I kind of didn't want to go full crazy-ex-girlfriend on someone I'd just texted with."

"Hey, I'm not...  Am I?"

"Nah, you're totally sane.  At least so far as it's possible for us to be.  Anyway, let's get to work."

We spent a lot of Saturday looking for how we might get into contact with J.T., but no luck.  It went on like that for a couple of days, although Pete was in and out, going to his job at the gallery and hanging out with a whole bunch of friends.  They always invited me to go along, but I never felt comfortable doing so, because Pete kind of puts a show on as Brigette, changing how he talks and swinging his butt, and while I get it and have done something like it, but it's one thing when you're trying to get the people with the power to let you in, another when you're treating it like a year-long adventure.

We didn't find where he lived, but we did find the next best thing - where his band would be playing their first gig since reuniting, which gave me a little time to visit New York (with Pete insisting on going to the Studio Museum in Harlem with me and pointing out everything he'd learned about African-American art) before last Thursday's show.

That was interesting.  Pete and I got there early enough to stake out a spot where we could see the show but not necessarily be seen, because as much as the idea was to confront J.T., I didn't want to draw attention to myself that Elaine would have to live with.  I initially tried to nurse a beer but wound up getting Manhattans with Pete, figuring that he'd become smaller than me, so I shouldn't get into too much trouble matching him.  It was probably for the best, keeping my brain kind of buzzed while it tried to process that this guy used to be my girlfriend and there was an undercurrent to some of his newer stuff that 95% of the people in the audience would never get.

After the set was done, we started to head toward the stage, but it looked like J.T. still had enough fans from his child-start days to form a crowd, so we headed toward the green room.  Pete struck up a conversation with the security guys to keep us from being chased away, at least for long enough that we were there when the band finished breaking their stuff down and was heading back, and J.T. stopped in his tracks when he saw me.  "Whitney - I didn't expect--"

I shook my head.  "Not Whitney."

"Oh.  Well, come on back, although I'm not sure how much I can really tell you.  How--"

"I wanted to surprise my girlfriend for the long weekend, and her sister thought it would be cool to let me use her hotel room."

J.T.'s bandmates bugged their eyes, but Pete led them to the side of the green room to give them all the gossip.  He took a step toward me, looking me up and down.   "So... Daryl?"

I nodded, and then before I knew it his arms were around me, pulling me in so tight that my head naturally tilted upwards, and he kissed me on the lips.  I'm not sure how long it lasted, but I took a step back, almost stumbling on my heels.  "That... was weird."

"Yeah, sorry, I just...  I thought I'd never see you again, and--"

"I get it, but I really didn't come here from that."

"Then why--?"

"So I can dump your lying ass properly!"  I slapped him and he looked kind of stunned.  I was too - I'd debated it, thinking it was too cliché or that I'd be a man smacking a woman, but there was something about the moment, not so much that he was physically male and I was physically female, but that he figured that was justification for getting so far into my space...  Well, a little physical contact back seemed reasonable.

Or at least, that's how my brain worked it out later.  At the time, I was more like "Every word you said to me was a lie, you were always planning to leave and just let someone else take over, and the fact that I could surprise you means you didn't even give a shit about what you left behind!  I spent weeks missing you when I should have been freaking out about all this!  You don't get to stay in my head like that!"

"I was just--"  He reached out his hands again, decided that was a bad idea.  "You're right.  That was kind of shitty of me, and it sucks that you never would have known if you hadn't..."  He paused.  "I'm sorry."

I kind of hadn't been expecting to hear that.  "Well...  Okay.  I guess--"  I looked over at Pete, not sure whether I was expecting a sister telling me not to believe his lies or some advice from someone who had been through the whole Inn process a few times, but he and J.T.'s bandmates were in their own conversation.  "So, what now?"

"Well, you dumped me.  Or have you?  Is just saying why you're dumping me the same as the actual dumping?"

"What else is there?  I mean, I gotta - I ain't gonna like guys in a couple weeks, am I?"

"No, things get back to normal pretty quick.  But in the meantime..."

"Dude, no.  Believe me, I know I'm hot right now, no-one gets it more than me, and Pete did dress me up sexy, but no way."

He smiled.  "Yeah, I wasn't ready for That after a month either.  Still, we've got a couple weeks before you have to go back to the Inn, so we might as well just try the 'let's just be friends' route."

It felt like a lot to ask, but it kind of sounded better than going back to Chicago and pretending to be Elaine.  Pete was okay with me hanging around, so I said yes.

And it's been fun.  We've been to the Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, the Natural History Museum, and a few shows; he's been cool about me wanting to hit some of the stuff at the New York Asian Film Festival, too.  We have, admittedly, occasionally found ourselves holding hands, and his "been there" jokes about me being late because I couldn't find an earring (one of Elaine's favorites, so I had better not lose it) are something I'll kind of miss, since it's not like I'll have that with my next girlfriend (although I'm terrified I will actually let a "been there" slip sometime a year from now).

Hopefully we'll still be friends once there's no sexual tension between us.  He's got a show tonight, we'll watch the fireworks tomorrow, and then it's off to Maine to become myself again.  There's nothing I want more, but I must admit, I kind of wish he'd been a dick about it, so that putting this behind us would be easy.

-Daryl/Elaine

Daryl/Elaine: Kind of My Own Plus One

At least, in a sense - when Elaine had J.T. RSVP for Marisa Chen's wedding, they probably figured I'd be going as the date.  I would have been Whitney's date in actually, though, and thinking of that makes me shiver a bit; Elaine's sister has a boyfriend, but I can't help but think this wouldn't stop her from getting me into bed after the reception.  She is pretty relentless in trying to mess with her sister's life using the Inn, so who knows? 

Instead, I went as Elaine, telling everybody who asked where my date was that he was unavailable, which was true enough; there was nobody who looked like the real me at the time (there is now, although we've just emailed so far).  They said that was too bad, asked if I wanted another drink, and about ten of them mentioned that Kenyon just got dumped by his girlfriend.

I don't think I did much to particularly embarrass the real Elaine; she gave me notes, seating that if something else goes wrong, she's going to build an app, put it on her phone, and be done with it.  I timed things so that I could arrive just in time, say a passing hello to anybody who recognized me in the church, and smile through the ceremony, trying not to feel too exposed.  The dress Elaine had suggested didn't actually show any cleavage and even went down far enough that I didn't have to cross my legs, butt it left my shoulders bare and the church had the AC on blast. 

I was going to make a quick am entry and exit from the reception as possible, but the happy couple sort of sets that schedule, and taking pictures took forever.  The flower girl, I'm told, had a meltdown that required a lot of her mother's attention, and since mommy was the maid of honor, well, you can guess how that went.  In the meantime, old Daryl-slash-Elaine is getting a super-concentrated version of the post-Trading Post experience, with rapid-fire introductions to a lot of Elaine's old friends who want updates on just what she's been doing and how she's been.  I try to fill in the blanks with what little I know, make my way to the bar, and try to pace myself because I know I'm smaller now but still probably overdo it a bit.  When the bride and groom do arrive, I'm probably a little Rossiter than I should be, but everybody just chalks that up to Daryl letting me down. 

So just bail as soon as dinner is done - except that I always want to dance when you get a few drinks in me, a few is even fewer than before, and Elaine's friend Marisa chose a heck of a playlist.  Based on what I found in "my" email the next morning, I must have demanded she send me a copy.  Anyway, once that kicks in, it takes a while for me to feel confident enough to get on the floor, but once I'm there, I don't really stop.  I wind up paired with this Kenyon guy a lot, and it could be worse; he picks up on how I jump the first time he touches me and saves that for when I'm about to fall over the rest of the night.  At some point, the bride ditches her heels and that means it's okay for the rest of us, and I move a little more. 

The next morning, I can't find one of the blue heels that goes with the dress anywhere, and I've fallen asleep with an underwire on (don't do that!), but my panties are where I left them! I'm alone in the room, and there are no phone numbers written anywhere, so I guess it's not a total disaster.  Nobody is shooting damn, boy/girl, you done messed up!  I fly home to Chicago, relieved.

And then, at the airport, I realize that I can't go home.  If been staying at my own apartment since returning from Maine, just popping into Elaine's quick enough to grab the dress before heading to the wedding, but now somebody else might be there, and I don't want to show up and have him think we're going to act like boyfriend and girlfriend.  So I call an Uber, give it Elaine's address, and go there.  I hit the buzzer for just long enough to remember I don't have to do that before going up. 

I take a shower, a little intimidated by how many products are still on the various shelves despite nearly two years of male occupancy, make myself some food, and try to fall asleep to some Netflix.  The next morning I wake up, and in some ways waking up alone in Elaine's apartment was just as weird as waking up in her body.  I felt like she should be there with me, but she wasn't, not in the right way.  I kind of tried pretending she was - putting on some of her sexiest underwear, feeling myself up in front of the mirror while making sexy talk - but even before I tried slipping a hand into my panties, I felt kind of pathetic. 

I killed the next few days without really meaning to, seeing the new Star Wars twice, finding a two-year-old puzzle magazine and finishing the kakuro, that sort of thing.  I went to a poetry slam thing with Elaine's friend Dorrie last night, and she asked me where "the cute nerd" was.  It felt kind of good to hear that, but I said I didn't think it was going to work, or if it did, we'd have to start all over, because, well, I can't explain.  She said that was too bad, "I" really seemed to like "him", and vice versa. 

Somehow, that was what I seemed to need to hear to realize that I didn't miss Elaine, and the unanswered voice mails meant I kind of didn't miss "me".  I decided to test a theory, went to Netflix, and searched on J.T.'s name.  The first couple of things were dumb kid stuff, but soon I found some weird low-budget sci-fi thing from three or four years back, start watching it, and, holy shit, I can see "Elaine" in his character.  I'm doubting it at first, but once I realize that I've slipped my hand into my underwear and not sure what to do next, I know what I've got to do.  Well, not exactly right them, but tonight. 

So, I'm writing this at the airport, waiting for my flight to New York, Ray to give the guy who dumped me a piece of my mind. 

-Daryl

Daryl/Elaine: Surprise Visit

You folks who have been reading the blog for a while can probably figure out the basics from the subject line alone - I'm Daryl Jackson, the guy who thought he was dating Elaine Preston, but it turned out to be some white guy who had been turned into her, and now the Inn has turned me into her.  It's messed up, and I'm staying to wonder if Whitney Preston just had it in for her sister or something.  Was Elaine always the successful one when they were growing up and now Whitney just keeps doing what she can to mess with her life, even though Elaine trusts her?

Or is that me extrapolating from what J.T. told me and acting like that's the dynamic with Elaine?  I suppose that from another perspective, Whitney is doing the right thing, cluing me in on the impossible situation I've found myself in by making it possible for me too believe it.

From what the real Elaine says, the original plan was that J.T. would go to the Inn and become himself again, then Whitney would follow, becoming Elaine; then her boyfriend becomes Whitney; he stays an extra two-week block to turn back; Whitney comes back and returns to normal; then, finally, at what's apparently the first chance for "Mackenzie" to vanish for a couple of weeks without getting Cary in trouble, Elaine gets her own form back.  It's an elaborate plan that's got to be coating her and Cary a chunk of change, but given that I'm just the latest in a parade of men to take on Elaine's form despite her best efforts, you can't blame her.

Maybe I'd really like that meticulous nature if she came back in August and I was none the wiser that the Elaine I'd been seeing had been replaced, I'd appreciate it.  Instead, I shrugged off her mentioning that she had an out-of-town contact for the next two or three months - we said we'd email, as you do - but after a week or so, I got the idea of surprising her for the long Memorial Day weekend.  I hadn't lined up a new gig yet but had a little money to travel, so I figured why not?  I shoot Whitney a message asking if she thinks it's practical; she says that, believe it or not, she was going to be visiting but she was sure Elaine would rather see me than her.  I offer to pay for the plane ticket and hotel reservation, but she says Elaine already had, and it was just a matter of transferring the ticket, since everything at the Inn is done with reservation numbers.  She warns me that Elaine is busy, and It might be a few days before she gets free and I see her at the Inn, even with the holiday weekend.  Tight deadlines, enough to include weekends, so don't expect her before sunset.

Having done my share of cramming both in school and at work, I respect that, so I spend much of Friday and Saturday poking around town, trying some seafood, texting back and forth with Elaine (the real one, it turns out) asking what she's up to, thinking she might drop a hint as to where she is, but no dice.  Sometime around ten, I open up my laptop and check to see who's online, and by two-ish I've switched to Fortnite, and that's when stuff starts to get weird.  I'm into it enough that as it starts, I mostly just think the lobster roll doesn't agree with me, which is also how I explain my voice sounding weird to everyone.  At some point, though, the controller slips in my hand (which has gotten smaller) and when I reach up to adjust my headset, I feel hair.  That's screwy enough for me to realize that something is really wrong, and it's like by realizing that I'm suddenly much more aware of how my whole body feels strange.  I tell everybody that I'm not feeling well and have to drop off, and I guess I hadn't spoken in long enough that I hear someone ask who the chick is before logging out.

I run to the bathroom, figuring I'm gonna have to puke or crap or something, and I don't get why it kind of hurts in the chest before seeing my reflection.  I'm, like, three-quarters of the way to Elaine, so I don't quite see it yet, but I'm clearly more woman than guy.  I reach into my pants to find that I'm a fraction of the man I'm supposed to be.  I'm starting to take off my shirt to see if I've really got tits now too, and that's when I notice the scar.  Elaine's appendectomy scar is kind of unusual - there's a little nick in it, like the surgeon was a little careless with the scalpel or something - and I've suddenly got the same one, although it looks more faded.  Or, as I suddenly realize, it's not all there yet.

Then I realize what I'm seeing in the mirror, and I already look even more like her.  I run back to the bedroom, grab my phone, and some instinct has me dial Elaine rather than the police.  I get voice mail, of course, and say random stuff about how it's Daryl and I'm turning into her and is she all right because this is really freaking me out.  Eventually there's a beep because you can only record a message that's so long.  I start to head back to the bathroom, but my feet get snagged by my laptop's power cord and I go down.  I bang my head on something, but it doesn't knock me out.  I don't get up, though I'm not sure whether it's from being dazed or just tired.

I wake up the next morning to a little white girl shaking me.  I groan, and she starts wiping some dried blood off my forehead.  "You better not have damaged my face."

The early morning hours haven't quite come back to me.  "What?"

"I'm the real Elaine Preston, and you are not my sister.  You're Daryl, right?"

I say yes, and that's when I get filled in on everything.

"Has everybody here changed?"

"Yeah, but this early in the season, they're pretty much all expecting it and expecting to go home."

"But I can stay here, get changed back in the next wave...?"

She looks sheepish.  "I did have J.T. RSVP to a wedding, a friend from college."

Oh, right.  I remembered.

Anyway, long story short, I didn't quite get Elaine Preston boot camp, but I can put on a bra and not fall over in high heels now.  I actually learned a lot of it from Cary, since Elaine was busy with sixth grade for the week after Memorial Day.

I flew back home earlier this week in order to get what Elaine calls a bit of practice "being", with Cary assuring me that in some ways it's not nearly as hard as it looks, that even without the powers of a curse, people will just assume the thing that makes sense when something doesn't seem right - that you had a bad morning, are on your period, or just screwed up.  And it's true.  I had a couple legs up on Cary and J.T. in that I had actually met Elaine's friends before and that it's almost certainly easier for a black man to know what to expect in a group of black women than a white one.  I can't speak for other transformees, but I suspect going from straight white man into the life of a black woman like they did must be among the most nerve-wracking, going from being pretty certain of your authority but expected not to throw it around to being low on the totem pole and knowing you can't give an inch.

I did okay, although I did have a couple early-morning freakouts.  I'm just hoping that the wedding tomorrow is like seeing old high school friends when you both happen to be home for the holidays - nodding, talking vaguely about what you've been up to going back home.

-Daryl

J.T.: Limbo

I mentioned it in my first post, and I think Jordan/Missy has written about the question of where our shapes go after we get changed by the Inn a bit - she may be trying to make movies now, but in some ways she's still kind of a computers and tech person at heart (at least, I don't know a lot of filmmakers that think like her), trying to figure out mechanisms and storage space - but it's not really the first thing on our minds most of the time.  We're so "oh my God, I've got to pretend to be this other person!", at least until most of us have to deal with someone else who has to pretend to be them, that is kind of a relief to not think of the other side.  The brain can only handle so much, right?

But when you're the last person who stays in a room for a summer season,  there's no other person who takes on your identity, no you out there in the world.  And I don't think it's too arrogant for me to say that I left a bigger hole than some; being famous (or once famous enough that you still have some fans) means that the discussion of your absence online isn't entirely localized to your family and friends.  Heck, it got mentioned on TMZ, although not in a way that really came across as concerned.

I talked with Elaine about that a few times in person, although she wasn't terribly sympathetic, saying that she figured that explaining the fact that you weren't around ultimately had to be easier than explaining why you did something, because it's ultimately something nobody can either prove or disprove - "you" just aren't there to leave a trail.  She's going to have a mess to put into some sort of coherent narrative later, to say nothing about figuring out how things are going to work with Daryl.

(That was a hard part of the letter to "the next Elaine" to write...  "I know you may be a guy, or older, or a teenager - and if you're a kid, just ignore this - but please keep things going with this guy you've never met, but don't fall in love because you've got to hand him off to someone else who hasn't met him but wants to!"  I feel weirdly possessive of him even though the sexual attraction is fading fast, and he'll definitely be in my mind the next time I'm playing a gay man.)

I'm back in New York, back as myself,  and it's surprisingly easy in some ways - my agent has dropped me, my reputation for being reliable has taken a big hit, and there's dust all over everything in my condo, but both the city and the business I'm in handle prolonged absences all right.

And yet, I'm kind of nervous about getting back out there.  Me and the rest of the band are getting together later this week to see what we want to do; we've got a lot of new perspectives we want to work with, and my band-mates are a couple now even though they weren't before.  It will be good, I think, helping to put my time as Elaine in the past, rather than something that lingers.

I probably won't rite or check here again.  I'll be close to Elaine forever, I hope, but thinking about all of this when I don't have to has had me paralyzed over the last week and a half, and I've got to focus on being me rather than my time as Elaine (or that of anyone else).

-J.T.

J.T./Elaine: No more excuses and no more time

Sorry for being so quiet the last couple months, but things at work have really had me wanting to keep things on the down-low, as they (we?) say.  The day after Valentine's was a complete nightmare, as one person in the office wound up going home with another after a night of drinking, only for her to find out that he had his entire apartment wired for video and sound, and when she told him that this was just going to be a one-time thing, he was able to email the entire office video from the night before.  She quit, he was fired, everybody got to do online sexual-harassment training courses, and there was no way Daryl and I were saying a word while everyone was walking on eggshells, despite everyone knowing why I'd left early that evening.

Which is a shame, because it was pretty great and those stories are better told fresh.

I was nervous, of course, because even though I've treated a lot of this like playing a part, I would probably have put out earlier if that's entirely how I was approaching it.  I held those feelings at bay for a while - buying sexy new underwear was like going to wardrobe, and chats with Elaine told me that, yes, this was in character.  I told myself that it would be fun to do a "sex scene" without weird blocking and simulation.  But then I spent all day bumping into Daryl, trading mild innuendo, and being reminded that he wasn't playing a part, but getting closer to the girl he liked.

I mostly put it out of my mind, and maybe drank a bit more than I've tended to do since figuring out Elaine's capacity.  I agreed that there was still plenty more to do after a delicious dinner, got in the Uber which took us to his apartment, and then let him kiss the heck out of me when we got in the door.

My body responded, and it was kind of intense.  Guys see nipples get stiff and we act like they're little erections because that's what we know, but it's the whole breast, and just to start; I swear there's not a single pay off my body that didn't feel some sort of arousal, and that was before my other girl parts started lubricating themselves.  I should probably be extremely happy that Daryl was enough of a gentleman to pause and put a condom on without me bringing it up, because that was kind of the last thing on my mind.

He was good at hitting the spot; I came two or three times that night.  I can't tell you that it was the best sex of my life, but as the end of a dry spell and as satisfaction of a lot of pent-up curiosity, it was sure as heck one of my most memorable sexual experiences!  I think he enjoyed it, too, even if it was mostly from my sounding pretty enthusiastic.

We did it again on the next few dates, and it was kind of fun discovering what I liked and what I was cool with doing.  Maybe it's just because I haven't been at it as long as some of the others, or something, but it kind of seems like less than most.  I'm not into being picked up and manhandled the way Missy apparently is, and I guess I'm kind of insistent about being on top.  Strong preference, anyway.  And if you're going to take my bra off, you'd better use your hands to support the girls - unless it's the morning after, the bouncing is just a little too much at the end of the day.

(This is the biggest thing I'm taking back to manhood - taking a bit of a load off the back during sexy times can really be appreciated, so long as he stops sort of squeezing too hard!)

It was kind of crazy for a lot of February - there was a solid week where our friends just didn't see us, and then every date had to end that way.  Then I had my period, and although I was nervous about ending the night early, he was cool with it.  Then there was a night when he said he had to get up early for an errand, and I kind of worried that maybe me being a man in my head was hurting things, but it was just that night, and eventually we just kind of got to being boyfriend and girlfriend, and sex is just one of the things we do.

And he turns out to be a pretty great boyfriend.  I'm not sure how good a girlfriend I am, but he's good at handling my weird man-in-a-woman's-body moods and occasionally being ignorant about stuff.  We have a fun time going out, and it's not just me being one of the guys.  It's been fun dates, I've been able to open up with him more than you'd think, considering that I'm always kind of giving him am alternate version of the truth.  He trusts me enough to do the same, which is more than I deserve, given the situation.

It's been kind of hard keeping things "secret" at work, enough so that it was a running joke at the wrap party on Friday (not what they called it, but what it felt like) that we'd finally be able to not put on a front.  Which is ironic, since the Inn opens on Thursday.

That's probably for the best, I suppose - as much as I did okay in Elaine's job, I'm not eager to take another contract, and I've felt a stronger itch to write and perform music in the last few weeks, and I've certainly got new sources of inspiration, although I suspect I'll have to disguise them somewhat once I'm presenting as a white male again.

I'm not sure whether I hope the real Elaine likes Daryl or not.  I've come to enjoy getting too know her via email and stuff the last few months, and I guess it's kind of good that she's developed a crush - she'll try to make it work and not break a good guy's heart.  It's just that this has been my thing for the past few months, and it's a weird thing to hand off, even if I don't want to actually be the one who breaks up with Daryl.

Good thing that won't be my problem in another couple weeks - not that explaining why we vanished from the face of the Earth for eight months will be any easier!

-J.T./Elaine

J.T./Elaine: Three Dates

It's actually been four dates if you count New Year's Eve, but that's a thing we did with a group of people, and when I was stalling because the third date is often the sex date, it was easy to pick up the habit of counting from zero that comes from working with computer people all day.  If that first one was Date Zero, then the third was actually Date Two, and I didn't have to worry about being intimate with another man for at least another few days.  Of course, that just pushes things off...

Still, that New Year's Eve night was a lot of fun - though most of Elaine's girlfriends had couple-centric things to attend, Jezzie had seen the clips of me and Daryl singing karaoke at the company Christmas party and was in no way going to be my excuse for not meeting up for more of that, although she was willing to be my escape route if things went badly.  Which I figured was the best thing that could happen; it's kind of weird seeing Daryl outside a work environment, maybe I can say one of his friends is making me uncomfortable, and we agree that it was a bad idea, and I don't have to deal with Elaine telling me that not taking a chance with him would be very out of character anymore.

We have a great time.

Jezzie, it turns out, has never done karaoke either, but loves it immediately.  We're initially outnumbered four guys to two girls, but Daryl's friends are apparently charming enough that two girls they met at the bar join us, and there's eight of us drinking, singing, and laughing for three hours before we break for "Auld Lang Syne" at midnight and then apparently have another hour and a half in us.  Jezzie winds up hoping up with one of Daryl's friends, and the next time the girls get together, she's telling me that he was really skeptical about the whole karaoke thing, but had a good time, and that he was surprised Daryl found a girl as fine as Elaine at his work, what with his nerd job and all.

I feel weirdly good about the compliment; I may have inherited Elaine's shape, but I've put enough work into it to feel some ownership:  I've lost a pound or two off my butt, got a shorter haircut that I like, and even figured out enough about dressing myself and doing make-up that those early days of embarrassing myself on job interviews are something I can laugh at.  He's not entirely attracted to someone else when he looks at me, and him saying so makes me feel like I've done something right.

Still, I don't really acknowledge that we had a date that week at work, and when the team is talking about how they rang in the new year, I kind of make it sound like we just happened to be in the same place.  He seems to get the hint, not asking me out again that week, but come the next Monday, the 8th, he casually slides by my desk and mentions that he's got an extra ticket to the Bulls that night and would I like to go?

I immediately wonder what kind of vibe I'm giving off, because I do occasionally find myself about to respond when guys in the break room talk sports and then thinking about how it's not really in-character - I've picked up Elaine's workout routine, but there's no team logos on her gear or souvenirs in the apartment, and I don't dress in a "one of the guys" outfit almost ever - but I also really want to go.  I've spent a lot of Sundays just camped out at the apartment watching football and caught more basketball since becoming Elaine than maybe I did in the rest of my life, just for something to follow.  Is there something I'm doing that says "she's not like other girls", or am I just stereotyping?  Heck, maybe he's just figuring that he should find out if the girl likes sports early.

So I say yes, the seats aren't great, but there's expensive watery beer, we get to argue en route to the Bulls losing to Houston, and there's no ironic thing putting us on some sorry of Kiss Cam or anything like that.  We go out for a couple drinks after that, but I don't get drunk enough for more singing.  That's Official Date #1.

I spend the next week and a half lying and saying I've got a lot going on at home, but eventually I cave when he asks me out to a movie the next Friday.  It's not a great one - that "Proud Mary" thing with Taraji P. Henson - but it's kind of fun.  I'm not sure how much I should enjoy her playing this kind of role, in that I still have zero problem identifying with white male main characters, but I kind of do dig watching someone who looks like I do now kicking ass, especially when I'm just letting myself get caught up in things.  I kind of like that she mostly did it in comfortable clothes and shoes, too.  Official Date #2.

Then, at the end of January, I decided to dial back comfortable, because that was the third date.  It's a bit of a cliche that that's the sex date, but I'm kind of susceptible to those expectations; I grew up inside TV and movies, after all, and truth be told, I'm kind of not used to waiting for the third date as a guy.  And, I admit, after four months, I'm kind of curious - I've been intimidated by a couple things at the back of one of Elaine's dresser drawers, I've occasionally lingered in the shower, and I've been kind of surprised that what I've done with my hands hasn't really done that much for me.  Am I just too tentative, does knowing exactly what's coming kill the excitement, or (gasp!) am I just terrible at pleasing women and nobody has ever told me?

I'm 50/50 between anxious to find out and terrified, but I do things up nice, spending way more of Saturday afternoon than I ever imagined in a hair salon, putting on lipstick, putting on flimsy, lacy underwear and spraying some perfume at my crotch after really tidying up down there for the first time.  It's too cold to wear anything really skimpy, but I look pretty great, I think, and, hey, it's not like I haven't spent longer getting ready to shoot a two-minute scene in a horror movie (and wound up looking much less sexy).

And Daryl, darn it, almost looks even better when we met at the restaurant.

It's a pretty nice meal, high-end Japanese.  I never pegged him as a big sushi guy, but it turns out he's a not-so-secret big fan of all things Japanese, though it's not a thing he really mentions to a girl until he's really sure that there's something there.  I guess black nerds not only get it as bad as white ones in high school, they're often kind of invisible in pop-culture, so he often really felt like there wasn't a place for him, and so he kind of keeps a loud on his "otaku-ness" still.

As much as it felt kind of strange for him to be opening up to me like that, it got even weirder when the subject got to me in high school.  I hadn't really had Elaine coach me on that, figuring it was long ago not too come up.  I gather she was not unpopular - she's in contact with a bunch of people from that time on social media - and she's got a few mementos from then in her closet, along with a few more in her parents' basement.  But we got on the subject, and it didn't seem right to say nothing after Daryl said something kind of important to him.

So I improvised, only to find myself putting a lot more of myself into it than expected.  To Daryl, then, Elaine had been popular but busy, not just inside school but out of it, and her parents had tended to over-commit her so that they could kind of soak that up.  Then, come college, she'd gone from being an overachiever to just one of many girls who were good at something, and that was why she was writing emails and annoying people by filling their Outlook calendars instead of creating things herself.

That's not entirely my story - if nothing else, I didn't come close to making Elaine's parents nearly as selfish as mine had been, on the off-chance he might meet them - but it's a lot closer to being mine than Elaine's.  I don't tell it a lot in any form, because it doesn't tend to do me much good; people both think that everybody who works in show business is rich, which is not the case, and take a certain amount of joy in people who have success as a teenager coming back down to Earth.  So it was a bit of a surprise to find Daryl being completely sympathetic, saying that he does know what it was like to feel like your biggest success is behind you.

We keep talking throughout our after-dinner activities, walking around to kill time before some local band he likes plays at 10pm, and then after, we hang out in the bar, talking some more about work, "my" troublemaker sister, his friends, and feeling like you don't really fit in somewhere.  The funny thing was, it didn't quite leave us in a sexy place, especially since the conversation included an ex-girlfriend of his who kind of made him nervous about girls wanting to have sex with him because she saw him as a way out of something and then wasn't easy on his self-esteem in the breakup when he didn't become an Internet millionaire as fast as she wanted.  Maybe the real Elaine would have taken it as a signal to show him what it's like when a girl really likes him, but I didn't.

We kissed, though, and I don't know if it's because I'm black or a girl now, or just random transferred genetics, but I've got much fuller lips than I did before and he's a good kisser - it's the first time I've actually felt like there was a lot going on with my lips rather than their being an obstacle on the way to my tongue, at least to that extent.  It was definitely weird, but one thing I learned as an actor was that the person kissing you can be anyone if you either close your eyes or tilt your head so that you're kind of looking over each other - you can be kissing a mouth, not a man, at least as long as you don't think too much about how strong the hands on your butt are.

Maybe me not being ready for that much eye contact was a signal to him, too.  Didn't really think of that until I started writing.  Still, I can't deny that the end of Official Date #3 had me very curious to see what all the way is like - and I'm sure he's planning something special enough for Valentine's Day tonight that I won't be wearing a thong for nothing!

-J.T./Elaine

J.T./Elaine: All I Want for Christmas...

I haven't entirely got the double life I'm leading up to being a triple life, exactly, although I really admit that I do enjoy blowing off a little steam at the end of the workday and work-week.  Sometimes it's just with Jezzie, since both of Elaine's other best gal-pals are in relationships, but it still seems like a bit of a double role, switching from the sensible (but nice!) project manager in the day ("Elaine") to the more adventurous single girl at night ("Lainey").  I even have to change how I talk, at least a little, although from talking to Elaine and her friends, this sort of "code-switching" is pretty common for African-Americans, especially women.  Folks love you being blunt and no-nonsense on your own time - and you kind of need to be, just to keep up - but when you get in a working environment with white people, you'd better conform and keep them comfortable.

That part's been easy enough for me - "professional talk" is a bit closer to what's natural for me, and eventually I kind of learned to take cues from whoever I was talking to after hours and appreciate that any raised eyebrows are more likely to be good-natured ribbing than actual suspicion.  Everyone deals with this, to an extent, unless they're really lucky, and I've seen it studying for roles or watching how colleagues change in different environments, but this seems to be the most extreme.  And it didn't really prepare me for a couple of situations that came up this past week.

First, just who should I be at an office party?

I mean, sure, I know that I'm going to have to be working with all of these folks again afterward, so I probably shouldn't let my hair down too much, but all the other folks I've talked to who have had real office jobs say you don't want to seem too much on your guard.  That's doubly true when you're the one assigned to organize the party - it would kind of suck to be thought of ad even more the management done after that.

I didn't really think of it much until Thursday - there was lots of regular work to do, and the budget was pretty tiny; whoever hires a bunch of contractors from different agencies put line items in for team-building activities but not time, so into the holiday party it went.  It was almost enough for me to rent a local bar's function room, buy a platter of cookies, get some rum for people to add to eggnog, and a bunch of paper snowflakes to hang from the ceiling.  I had to duck out of the office an hour or so early to get there to set it up, and by the time I did, I regretted my Christmas-y outfit a little - the festive red pencil skirt with the matching heels looked nice with the black pantyhose and green blazer, but they weren't great for climbing on a chair to hang things.  I may have nearly broken my neck three times before I was done, only to spoil some nog on the coat.  The green satin top underneath didn't spoil the look, but it left me bare-armed and had a to button that liked to come undone whenever I twisted my torso a bit (fun fact - Elaine's one of those women whose breasts get a bit bigger when she's ovulating, so clothes that normally fit just fine are suddenly kind of tight).  When people started arriving, I still looked more "Elaine" than "Lainey", but it made more sense to play it loose than efficient.

That was going to happen anyway, since there was a bar and Ali had told me to keep his two drink tickets.  I didn't get sloppy, but I did get to the point where the whole situation seemed really funny.  And where I didn't stop to wonder whether or not karaoke was a thing Elaine did.

It's not really a thing I ever did, too be honest - I sing professionally, after all (well, the band wasn't really paying, but I'd done musicals on the stage), and you've got to protect your pipes even if it wouldn't be trying to unwind by doing the same thing you do at work.  That was three months ago, though, and after a couple of drinks, singing was a fun thing I hadn't done in too long.  So when someone shoved me up there after punching in Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas", I only had a fleeing thought about what would happen if Elaine didn't have a good singing voice.

She does, though, good enough that when people started applauding, I thought damn, this could be my thing for the next few months!  I wound up on that little stage four more times that night, and was actually kind of disappointed when people had started to leave and it was time to take everything down.

So that went okay.  But it left me with just a couple of days to try and figure out who I should be with Elaine's family.

I'd begged off Thanksgiving, telling them I had to work the Friday after, but you can't really skip both Thanksgiving and Christmas without making trouble, and unlike when they sent me messages on Facebook there was no way to discreetly have the real Elaine advise me.  And given my difficult relationship with my parents (exploitation, emancipation, estrangement), I don't really know what an adult child going home is supposed to feel like.

Mostly, it's pretty good, at least for Elaine.  Her folks are proud of her, respected that I didn't much want to discuss this summer.  The cover story was that "Elaine" had taken what she thought was a government contact, gone mostly quiet on social media because she was afraid of spilling something, but actually been working for a criminal enterprise which she couldn't talk about.  Exciting cloak-and-dagger stuff if it were real.

Of course, Elaine's sister Whitney knew it was fake, and she couldn't wait to peel me away from "our" parents.  It was kind of weird, not just for the obvious reasons, but because she remembered me, and thought it was hilarious that I was playing her big sister.  I pointed out that I wouldn't be if she hasn't screwed up and left Elaine/Mackenzie at a campground, and she shrugged and said she felt bad about that, but the whole experience had shown her that her old boyfriend was a jerk and was helping her be a better person.  Besides, she said, if that hasn't happened, who knows where I would have ended up?

I think she was excited at the idea of getting close to someone she'd had a crush on as a teenager, and while I've got to admit that's kind of gratifying - it didn't happen nearly as often as it used to even before becoming Elaine - I really wasn't feeling much desire to get chummy with someone who had been so careless with her sister's life and identity, even if it maybe beat the alternative of maybe being stuck in the middle of my band-mates' relationship.  I told her as much, and that her parents should be thankful that I'm a good enough actor to only treat her with the annoyance Elaine normally had for her screw-up sister.

That was mean, I know, but Christmas plus period plus Whitney kind of brought out the worst in me.  I got karmic payback right away, though, as Elaine's parents phones gave of a little buzz because apparently one of my co-workers had uploaded some videos from the holiday party and tagged "Elaine", and of course, not only did her parents not only have alerts set up for their daughters, but the first one that they saw was the last song of the night, when I was singing "Baby It's Cold Outside" with Daryl.  Who, by the way, is a handsome, single African-American man.

Her father paused it after just a second, but mostly so that he could sync his phone with the TV and let everyone watch in high-definition quality.  "I guess you got yourself a new hobby while you were off the grid, huh?"

I felt myself blushing a bit - obviously, I'm used to seeing myself on a TV, but not as Elaine, and not when I hadn't planned on it being seen.  "Not really - it was a party, I'd had a couple of drinks--"

Whitney gave me a pat on the shoulder.  "Don't sell yourself short, Lainey - you're a natural performer!"

I shoved her away, but "Mom" raised her eyebrows.  "I'll say!"

My eyes went wide watching the screen - I was really into it, with lots of hand motions, exaggerated walking to and from Daryl, looking fake-shocked at "what's in this drink?", way more than I remembered.  "Uh, well, it's just this song.  It's kind of rape-y if you don't vamp it up, right,  and make it perfectly clear that the girl is flirting and really wants the guy, even if her family and friends are, like, judgmental and stuff--"

"Well, you're both pretty convincing on that count.  When do we get to meet this boy?"

"Dad, no!  Daryl's a co-worker - even if I wanted to, that'd be a big-time HR thing."

Elaine's mother opined that it looked like it would be worth it, and I admit, I didn't have to do much acting to portray Elaine as kind of mortified.

Fortunately, Daryl had traveled to California to see his folks for the holiday, so I didn't see him until yesterday, when he was a total pro until quitting time, when he sat down in my cube and asked if my folks saw the clip as well.  He didn't really seem embarrassed, but wasn't smirking either.  "Not going to lie, they were almost as impressed as I was."

"Oh, mine too.  Too bad it would be totally inappropriate, huh?"

He looked at me and somehow made his eyes twinkle.  "Would it?  You're not technically my boss, and if I asked you out..."

"I dunno...  That's still..."  That's still going on a date with a guy, which would probably be fun, and thus lead to a second date.  But I couldn't say that.

When I didn't say anything, he smiled a little more.  "You're responsible.  I like that.  You ask my folks, I probably need that.  But since everyone was either at the party or saw the video, something with you and me is probably going to be in their heads anyway.  So - how about I just tell you where some friends and I are going to be hanging out, singing karaoke on New Year's Eve?  You can come, bring your girls, or not.  Whatever you think is right."  He told me, then left.

Not sure what to do.  If I looked at it as playing a role, well, Elaine has told me that even if doing karaoke wasn't exactly in character, showing up at that bar absolutely would be.

-J.T./Elaine