Daryl/Zee: Where to next?

Stayed in the hotel room for a couple of nights, but I'm not exactly loaded enough to do that long-term, so I went looking for apartments, but as you might expect, that's also crazy in New York, even when you get to lesser neighborhoods.  I found one that looked pretty nice, and then I got Inn-brain and stopped short of signing a lease.

Breaking up with J.T. messed me up, like every breakup kind of messes you up for a while, except that every cell of my body had been changed from what they had been before I met him to facilitate being with him, and while I wasn't going to try and demand my old life back - it had been freely given with assurances about this very situation, and even if I had done so because I hadn't thought it was ever going to happen then, I'm not that kind of person - the thought of becoming a man again was certainly at the front of my mind.  So I figured, let's not commit to anything.

I don't think I'm gong to do that, though.  I've gotten used to being Zariyah Andrews, and while I'm at least the third Zee, so it's not like I've been entrusted this life by its original owner, I've tried to form some bonds with her mother and other people on her contact list because I feel like I've been entrusted with them.  I've been a woman for long enough that I'd have to not just adjust to all the details of a new life but relearn what it's like to be a man.  And, ultimately, after spending six years with J.T. and seeing it end in an afternoon, I'm ready to move forward.

But how?  And where?

I've come to really like New York, and while I could probably spend the next thirty years in Manhattan and never cross paths with someone I knew from dating J.T., I kind of don't want to risk it.  I don't want to accidentally run into Magda-4 or Harmon/Alicia, either.  Harlem is tempting; I've got a short-term rental there now, and I kind of hadn't realized just how much the Black part of my life was missing until now.

Going back home to Chicago is also tempting, but it kind of feels wrong.  I'll be tempted to return to familiar places, but form new relationships there, and drive myself nuts when they aren't quite like the old ones.  That's something I did being three of J.T.'s girlfriends, and it wears on you.  Plus, I might run into new-Daryl, and that's also weird.

A weird thing I kind of wasn't expecting is how many of the friends I've made as Zee find this course of action completely reasonable.  They know my backstory, that I met J.T. and uprooted my life to be with him and were sympathetic to both the impulse and the way it blew up and left me adrift, and it's a kind of funny thing that both sexes will react mostly the same way, but with slightly different different emphasis.  Men and women both find it romantic, but men tend more to "she's setting you up and is going to think it's funny when she dumps you" while women are usually more thinking about he might wind up hurting you without thinking about it and you'll be without a support system.  Not all men (does that rate a "TM"?), obviously, and not all women, but on the average.

So by the same logic, men will hear you talking about moving after a relationship ends and think you're nuts ("don't give her the satisfaction!") and women will be like, yeah, that's kind of extreme, but I get it and have sometimes wished it were an option for me - and are you okay, by the way?  Again, not everyone in a demographic, but there's a trend.

Looking over this, it makes it sound like I think J.T.'s dangerous, and he's not, and I don't think he would be if I stuck around but continued to reject any attempt to reconcile.  I just kind of find this really interesting and worth focusing on, because having been with him for so long, the fact that the end of a relationship can be an especially scary time for a woman is something I've avoided.  But it's something I'll have to keep in mind for the future, especially if I wind up someplace without other Inn veterans for support.

-Zee

Daryl/Zee: You Would THINK This All Counted for Something!

I still think of myself as pretty young, because not only does Jonah/Krystle have a point about your self-image kind of freezing as you were the first time you went to the Trading Post, but I was Magda for four years, and even after almost two years as Zariyah "Zee" Andrews, I still know what it's like being past menopause, feeling a little worn down, and having people look askance at you and your younger boyfriend.  I've been feeling like I imagine a young woman feels.

Except, well, I'm not, entirely.  When I talk to my "mom", she asks if I'm ever going to give her grandchildren.  I've started wearing reading glasses on occasion.  Younger people in the office say I look good "for my age".  And, I admit, when I saw that Jonah's boyfriend had proposed, it kind of hit me that I had been with J.T. for over six years and we hadn't really talked about it.  Well, we kind of had, but we'd more talked about talking about it - this is my fourth face, after all, and before I got it we kind of needed to be able to uncouple and recouple without a lot of fuss.  It hasn't been that way for a while, though.

I started to fret about it with a girlfriend, being vague about some things and trying to come up with "equivalent lies" for others, and she pointed out that I had, from the sound of it, made the first move throughout our relationship, so maybe that was just our vibe.  It felt like a really obvious thing when she put it like that; after all, I'd been the guy and he was Elaine when we met, I had gone to him when I was Elaine, had made the huge gesture to let fate decide if I should get another body, moved to his city (twice!), and sought out this younger shape myself.  He had gone along with what I wanted and was ready for, and it wasn't just dropping hints.  I was going to have to ask him.

So I went to a jeweler, let them think that I was proposing to a girlfriend, and bought a pair of matching engagement rings, both with small, kind of subtle diamonds.  We both wear jewelry, though it's more often just an earring or a pinky ring for him and I'm not a lot fancier.  Yesterday afternoon, I got the call that it was finished, and I told my co-workers that I'd be knocking off early to pick it up, and would check in later in the evening.  I got the rings, headed back to the apartment, and smiled a bit as I heard the noises from the bedroom.  This is going to sound stupid, but J.T. has been on this Euro-sleaze kick lately, "research" for a film that thought it would be fun to cast the former teen idol as the svengali figure, but also because they're kind of dumb fun, which is why I didn't think anything of opening the door and asking what he was watching.

Only to see him fucking Harmon Keller-slash-Alicia Polawski-slash-Harmony Kelton on our bed.

He was on his back and she was riding him cowgirl, so he saw me come in and pulled his hands from her breasts and tried to push himself away, and she looked over her shoulder and smirked, nonchalantly pulling away from my boyfriend's cock, picking up her uniform and slipping it on over her head, then grabbing her high heels but not bothering with her underwear as she used her other hand to grab the roller bag from the corner of the room.  She blew him a little kiss, mouthing "call me", then favored me with a quiet "bye mom" as she sauntered to the door and then the elevator.

As Magda, I'd given a probably-reasonable but probably also unhealthy amount of thought to what I would do if J.T. ever cheated on me, and the answer turned out to be cool anger.  As he reached for his boxers, I stepped on them so he couldn't pick them up off the floor and stared downward.  "All the actresses and models you work with, the girls who had a crush on you as kids, all the other women in fucking Manhattan, and you do this with fucking Harmon Keller?"

I was apparently angry enough that he feared I would do something violent, because he moved his hands to cover his shriveling, now semi-erect dick.  "Honey, it's not like that!  I mean, yes, Harmon can kind of be a pain, but she's like us, and was nervous about embracing this part of womanhood, so when we met while she was doing an audition for something while I was shooting in the same building, she asked for some pointers, and--"

"She was at an audition?  I talk to Magda, asshole, and I know she hasn't been trying to get into show business beyond her YouTube thing for a year and half!  How long has this been going on?"

He repeated the sound "I" a lot.

"It started while I was still Magda, didn't it, and she was me but with a perfect ass and nothing sagging and buttering you up about how she still wasn't sure she knew what she was doing but you were such a good teacher and nobody else would understand, didn't it?"

He lowered his head.  "Yes."

"And you probably ate it all up, didn't you?  And you know what, I'll bet she's been pushing you to do stuff that made it more likely you'd get caught, right?  She's hated me ever since I told her I'd be moving out of that apartment in Oakland any more and probably figured blowing up the thing that took sabotaged her easy little life would be good revenge."

Apparently suggesting that she wasn't primarily into him was the thing that would get him to react.  "Honey, it's not about you--"

I leaned in.  "It's about me even if the bitch didn't mean it to be.  Do you not understand that I started completely new lives twice for you?  That the only time I've talked to my original family in six years was at Elaine's wedding, and that was just small talk from a former co-worker?  That instead of Magda, I could have become somebody who wouldn't make it through the winter?  All so you don't have to sacrifice one bit of your comfortable situation!"

"Look, I never asked you to do any of that!"

"Oh, but you let me, and said how lucky you were to have someone who loved you that much!  And this is how you repay me, going behind my back with that asshole!"  Angry, I walked over to a closet, pulled out a suitcase, and started putting some clothes into it.

His expression shifted a little, like I sometimes saw at work from someone who figured I'd left myself open.  "Come on, let's talk about this!  Where are you going to go?"

"It's New York, there are hotels.  Not like I can exactly crash with Magda, is it?"

"Come on, you said yourself, we've got so much invested in this!"

I turned around.  "I said I have a lot invested in this.  You, apparently, just have a couple of closets!"

I didn't wait for a response and took about the same path Harmon had toward the elevator, and realized that I didn't even really have a travel app on my phone on the way down - J.T. had taken care of any vacations we took, and the couple of times I've traveled for work, the office handled it.  I wound up just looking for hotels on Google Maps, which I suppose is fine, but probably cost me.

Anyway, this is my second night in this room, and I'm not sure what to do.  J.T. has left a few voice mails and text, but I feel like he should be trying harder to get in touch with me?  Is that just crazy woman brain, crazy guy brain, or me knowing just how central this relationship is and expecting it to be valued similarly?

-Zee?

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/Zee: People Think I'm Crazy

Well, they think Zee's crazy, coming back from vacation, giving two week's notice, and saying she's going to up and move to New York because she met a guy on vacation.  Nope, don't want to stay on as remote after that, either - just making a clean start!  Which surprises them a little, as previous-Zee apparently liked working from home during the pandemic.  I can kind of see why - there are cheat sheets right next to her monitor about who everyone is - but it's kind of not exactly an ideal workplace.  None of her co-workers are surprised by the desire to move on, even if previous-Dee didn't exactly strike them as the romantic type, though the management seems to think giving notice right after coming back from a long vacation is the sort of thing an asshole does.  Can't say they're exactly wrong, but, again, there are a lot of co-workers who think giving the finger as you depart is the stuff of legend.

I was able to pack fairly light for the move - previous-Zee started downsizing almost two years ago, and I told her that she could keep whatever she had come to grow fond of from Zee's apartment, not realizing just how much she'd take me up on.  But that's fine.  She became Zee in her mid-twenties and had been her for three years, and as much as she wasn't looking back, there was a lot of things she was used to, and which I wouldn't know I was missing.

So I went to New York, put some things in a storage unit that J.T. had arranged, and then made my way to Flushing, because the new Magda was insisting that I stay with her and tell her everything she needs to know before completely diving into her new life, which was a surprise, but a welcome one.  Short-term situations in New York are at least one of hard to find and expensive, and J.T. and I didn't want to do the "new girlfriend immediately moves in" thing again, even if it would look less weird with me not appearing old enough to be his mother.  Hopefully I won't be here long, but it's nice to be somewhere kind of familiar while I get on my feet.

I was a bit surprised when I got buzzed up that first time and new-Magda opened the door; she looked younger than I had looked as her and I told her so.  She accepted the compliment and said that she'd spent some time as a make-up artist back before she got married, and had all sorts of experience with shaving a few years off a middle-aged woman even before she'd been one, and "Magda" was aging quite gracefully to begin with - although she said I obviously knew that, of course, because I'd been Magda not long before.

She ran through all that quickly before saying that I'd certainly found myself a nice little landing spot and I said, yeah, I feel a little more like me while still being someone my boyfriend would enjoy having sex with.  She turned a bit red at that - she's actually in her mid-sixties and sort of aspires to be as sex-positive as a Golden Girls character but still defaults hard to cis-het in her thinking, and the idea that I could start out as a "normal" man and get to a point where I was looking for a just-right female body even with magic involved is hard for her to get her brain around.  It's going to be fun the next time that Harmon arrives if she starts thinking of him as entirely Alicia the way she seems to treat me as entirely Zee because she doesn't know what to think about me as Daryl.

Still, she's a pretty apt pupil for someone who initially worried about teaching an old dog new tricks, seemingly excited to learn all the goings-on at the airport.  I asked if she thought she was going to be Magda long-term, and she says it's tempting, depending on what happens with her husband, who has become someone fairly age-appropriate for Magda but...  Well, his real identity is ten or fifteen years older than her, so there's a very real possibility that it won't be there to come back to in the spring, and he doesn't want to stick someone else with so few days.  Apparently, he says she should stay Magda whatever happens, rather than be a widow everyone takes pity on, but they've been together for decades and she can't imagine abandoning him like that.

It was a sobering thing that I brought up with J.T. on our "welcome (back) to New York" date that evening.  We've known kids who became adults via the Inn and vice versa, and I've certainly given some thought to having potentially lost twenty years while living as Magda, but the other end of things is scary.  Just imagine becoming Magda's husband as a teenager and not knowing if your heart will make it to the next Inn booking!

Fortunately, we've got that behind us, and he figures that in time, once I've found a place of my own and a new job, we'll eventually get to a point where we can just look forward.  Easy for him to say - he was only someone else for one year, almost five years ago!

-Darzee (nah)

Daryl/Zee: Meet-Cute

J.T. put on a pretty darn good performance Thursday night, acting like I just randomly caught his eye across the bar, buying me a drink, pretending like he didn't expect me to recognize him but would be hurt if I didn't.  It's a funny thing, our lives - if you've been to the Inn, you're eventually going to get into a position where you've got to perform as someone else, and it's different from what he does in that you don't really have to be convincing, because there's no reason for anyone to actually doubt you, but there are so many ways to be "off" that make it harder for people to follow their own part of the script, so to speak.  When you throw a professional actor like J.T. into it, though, it's something else.

At times, I'm not so sure that's a great thing - he was so convincingly Elaine that I fell for her, and hasn't that made my life crazy over the past few years?  Everyone else either just tries to keep their heads down or commits to living their new life, and while that inevitably makes a mess, because humans are messy, it's usually a clumsy mess that we can stumble out of awkwardly.  But he was just too good.

On the other hand - that night was exciting.  Like, we've kind of been doing some performances together for a while, like our "breakup" in June that got me a bunch of sympathy from the friends and co-workers I had as Magda but which left him a fair amount of time to have his friends start pushing him to find someone new, while I've been sort of laying the groundwork to leave the next Magda able to do whatever she wants without it seeming weird.

Still - it was kind of surprising to see just how well he was selling it.  I mean, I know J.T. well already, and I never really thought of myself as a woman who wanted a man to pay attention to me.  Sometimes I don't even think of myself as a woman, but a guy who has wound up in a woman's body because the girl I liked was really a man and this worked out easier.  But here's J.T., doing that, and it's kind of working on me.  I mean, I've never been a single girl looking for a guy's attention, but I did kind of worry that maybe with this new shape and voice and smell or whatever, we might lose chemistry, but, nah, he's interested and I'm excited by that.

He calls a taxi and we get back to his/our apartment, and we kiss for a long time, letting us get used to how my new lips feel before we do much else.  He's really excited to undress me, though, and I let him, not letting him touch anything until he's got me completely naked, and even then kind of making him look me all over, starting from how I've actually got pretty nice toes (I don't think prior Zees have crammed them into the sort of shoes that squish them together than much) to the shape of my legs.  Then he's laying hands on my firmer ass, and from there it's not far to my tits, and he's kissing those and being kind of cute in how he's not sure whether I want to hear how much better they are or if I'll take that as him saying that he didn't enjoy what I had as Magda.

Eventually, we get to the bed, and for all that it's exciting, I'm tighter down there than I was, and he likes it but it's also a little harder than he's had to work before.  We both get a little surprised when something that had always brought be to orgasm before feels good but isn't quite the same, although we get there eventually, and it's good enough to leave us both lying there, panting.

We hang out as much as we can over the weekend - he is in a show, after all - and most of today, before I get on a plane (ugh, paying for airline tickets!) and head back "home", where I will act so spacey and distracted for the next couple of weeks that everybody will hopefully take my not knowing who they are as being head over heels in love.

--Daryah (maybe? I'm pronouncing it dare-ee-yah in my head)

Daryl/Zee: I can hardly believe this is FINALLY me

Of all the folks posting on this blog, I suspect that Jordan is the only one who really gets how nice it is to wake up in the Inn, look in the mirror, and feel like things are finally right, even if being white was easier in a lot of ways.  Two nights ago, I went to sleep as Magda for the last time, having intending to be awake to watch my body change in the mirror, but one's mid-fifties are no joke, and I eventually flopped down on the bed, only to wake up, see the sun on my darker legs, and suddenly feel energized to bounce up and run into the bathroom.

I'd seen the face already, but it was great to be able to make it smile in the mirror; this may be my fourth face, but I don't know that you ever get used to this.  It twirled my hair, thinking I'd probably braid it, because while it's not super-nappy, it's also not the fine, silky stuff they make wigs out of, so it would take a lot more combing than Magda's did for the same effect.  I said a couple test sentences, and my voice felt a little closer to right.  "Hi!  I'm Zariyah Andrews!  Call me Zee!"

Though I'd grown an inch and a half, it wasn't enough to make the shorts and tee I had slept in as Magda feel tight.  Heck, with the weight off my chest, it was probably a wash up top.  Not that I'm flat-chested now, but Magda had always been busty and had a kid besides, so being perky maybe didn't look quite so impressive, although I remembered from being Elaine that you can do a lot with the right bra.  My legs and butt looked pretty good, and a quick look inside the shorts indicated nothing unexpected.

(I feel bad about reducing this to a bunch of body parts, but apparently four years isn't quite enough not to be waking up a new woman by taking inventory of the sort of thing guys look for)

Soon after that, folks started yelling, so I threw some daytime clothes on and went to help folks out.  After that, it was the obligatory trip to Cary's hot dog truck.  I must have been smiling like an extra-special goofball or maybe nobody else orders a Chicago-style dog - or maybe both - but he sort of held it in the air for a second, considering what a fool he'd look like if asking "Daryl?" was the wrong call, before I busted out "call me Zee!" for the first real time.

He told me I looked really good, and I thanked him, and then he did me the favor of asking how dropping twenty years overnight felt because I wanted to say it was great, thank you very much, without acting like I pitied him for taking those years back after his time as Elaine.  Us having both had the same identity at different times gave us a bit more room to talk about how things were going with the original (and never being anyone else again) Elaine.  She and the guy living as me found each other and are getting married next spring, which is crazy, especially when you think that neither of them were using those names the last time "Daryl & Elaine" was a thing.

Anyway, he seemed genuinely happy that this had finally worked out for me.  I was planning to take over this life a year ago, but then the original Zee's father died, and even if it didn't mean much to the last person living that life, being in it meant responsibilities she couldn't get out of without feeling awful, so we put everything off a year.  I haven't posted about it because I didn't want to jinx this time, which feels stupid but I can't exactly say that there's no chance of jinxes being real, can I?

I spent most of yesterday afternoon making sure that new-Magda would be in good shape - doing laundry, buying a couple new underwear sets, finding a spot where you could print things out so that she had a bunch of maps and diagrams (and making sure they were all stored in her phone), attaching names to a bunch of people at the airport.

There was also a big section in the binder on Harmon/Alicia, more than I might have expected a year ago, but fake family's fake family, and maybe the new Magda would want to spend more time with him.  We never really got on, but ever since I got my own place in Flushing in preparation for this whole switch a year ago, he's kind of made himself at home there whenever his schedule takes him to New York, because after all, Magda wouldn't expect her daughter to stay in a hotel or crash pad, would she?  We aren't actually roommates that often - I still stayed over at J.T.'s a lot - but, we do go through the motions of playing mother and daughter more than we used to.

In fact, she was there when I got into town this morning, and you'll pardon if I switch pronouns up, but you would have to look very hard to see a man eligible to collect social security in the 27-year-old woman sitting on my couch in a miniskirt and a top that was little more than a bra, feet on my coffee table in high-heeled knee-high boots, hair back in a ponytail, barely looking up at me from her phone (where she was probably looking to see if anybody had tagged photos of her from the night before) as I came in using a spare key.  There's something about her that I don't like, maybe because I feel like it's a reflection of me switching lives for my own ends and not looking back.

That and the dismissive compliments, like "yes, I guess that's at least a lateral move" upon looking at me, which probably wasn't actually racist, but sort of felt that way, like being younger and taller and tighter maybe didn't entirely compensate for not being white anymore (I'm not proud that I've worried about that myself).  I shrugged it off and said I was going to take a shower and a nap, because I'd wound up taking the train after a flight or two was canceled.

It hit me as I saw myself in the bathroom mirror that my new face didn't match what I was expecting in this place - by now I expect the Inn to be random, I guess - and I started thinking about what I'd like to keep from this apartment/phase of my life to bring into the next one.  Should I want to bring more mementos, or physical things, than I was planning?  Given that J.T. and I figure to pick right back up where we left off it doesn't seem like I should be leaving as clean of a slate.

Of course, to do that, he's got to "meet" Zee, which is why I've spent an hour or so after getting up from my hap working on my hair and make-up and making sure I chose just the right outfit so that nobody would be surprised when this "tourist" catches his eye at the bar tonight.

It's funny - I've been with him for longer than I have been with any girl, but we've switched our shapes so often that it doesn't necessarily feel like that.  Heck, I almost wonder if we'll start joking about it if we hit a rut in a couple of years.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves - tonight, I'm seeing a play and finding out what these taste buds think of gin!

-Zariyaryl (Hmm, maybe not)

Daryl/Magda: This Goddamn Week

If you're reading this sometime in the future, not really remembering what 2020 was like, here's a reminder:  There's been a pandemic that has shut down and disrupted every facet of our lives, not nearly enough was done to mitigate it, and just as America in general was starting to "open up" too early, video a couple of black men being killed by white people ostensibly enforcing the law was everywhere you went on the internet and the protests became riots, in large part because of police overreaction and, from what I can see, because of people going out of their way to stir shit up because they know that any trouble will come back on black protesters.  It's been fucking insane.

I'd like to tell you that I've been using the fact that I look like a pretty well-preserved white woman to make a difference, putting myself between cops and protesters when I know shit is about to go down, but I haven't, and I hope like hell that it means I haven't lost touch with who I really am.  It's doubly concerning because I've been calling "Junah" and Jenn (and her ersatz family) to make sure that they're staying safe and feeling kind of proud that the conversations with the former feel really authentic.  He's not an older lady playing at being a young black man, or incensed that he's now more of a potential target in a way that he doesn't "deserve" because of how he started out.  He's not totally familiar with the nuances, but he gets it.

And maybe it's a measure of how much I've become this white woman that I'm more scared of the virus right now.  Between people not traveling and the airlines and airport doing what they can to enforce six-foot spaces, it could be a lot worse, but I do get people every day who are mad that I'm wearing a mask and cough or breathe heavy at you when they want to make some sort of point.  I've had several co-workers and friends come down with it - including one person I don't know very well who has died - and have had that swab stuck up my nose a couple of times.  Going out into a crowd, all that stuff going on...  I get that for some people like J.T., who have mostly been staying in for the past couple of months, this seems like not just a welcome but a righteous opportunity to hit the streets, but I can't help but think of the virus as the most dangerous part.

And to twist the knife just a little more...  Pete had found someone I could become.  31, African-American, female, she'd fallen into a good thing over the winter and was willing to say goodbye to her old life.  I haven't talked about it - or anything - on here because I didn't want to jinx it, but it was a chance to become a little more myself, maybe even start a family, except that the Inn being closed messed all that up and a part of me looks at the news and is glad that I don't have that to worry about.

Sorry for dumping all this, but if this blog isn't for the times when we don't know who we are, then what is it for?

-Magdaryl

Daryl/Magda: Wine O'Clock

J.T. is home this weekend, and thank God.  It's not just that I've missed him, but I've started missing me.  Not having someone around who knows that I'm not the same on the inside as on the outside was not quite exactly what I expected it to be, but it does make me wonder how far off the day is when I think of myself entirely as Magda.

That seemed impossible the last time I blogged, but I sometimes think that the Inn wants us to take the places of the people we've become, and the only thing holding us back from doing so is our own stubbornness and attachment to other things.  J.T. is my link to my old life, so while he's away, it's easy to slip into the things a woman in Magda's position does.

I've been working in this airport long enough to know my co-workers, so it's not particularly strange when they invite me to join them for a drink after work, although some do raise an eyebrow when I actually accept.  I'm worried that I won't fit in, but it's actually easier in some ways than fitting in with J.T.'s friends, who assume I've got little to say to them.  We've got work, a after all, and if you've ever been standing behind an unreasonable person while waiting in line, you know airline workers are going to have a list of grievances at the end of the day.

On top of that, there's a lot of physical things that I kind of don't realize are wearing me down until I'm not doing them any more.  Just walking down the street with a bunch of 5'6" women in their forties is kind of a revelation w when you spend most of your time trying to match the pace of younger, taller men because you think that you should be able to do so, even if you leave heels completely out of it.  So is ordering a glass of wine instead of beer or liquor.  I gather the health benefits are mostly bunk - most of the benefit ascribed to having a glass of wine or two a day also correlate to the other dietary choices wine-drinkers make - but it seems to match my palate and throat better.  It's strange but true.

They don't just talk about work, though, and the topic turning to kids is where things started getting a little surreal for me.  I can go weeks without giving Harmon a lot of conscious thought - it takes a moment or two for me to recognize that all the selfies and stuff "Alicia" posts on social media is kind of a performance as opposed to just the amounts of some ordinary girl when I'm scrolling through my phone, and then I take a moment to think about whether I'll ever go that native.

I hadn't actually watched his YouTube channel until one of the ladies was talking about how her kids don't listen to the radio or watch TV but just go to YouTube and I mentioned that my daughter had a channel just to have something to say.  Someone got out a tablet and we watched them, and I was kind of surprised how much he seemed to be enjoying himself, even doing a couple in the uniform I remember him taking off as soon as he would get home during our time living together.

(I mentioned them to Lindsey, who I kind of keep in touch with every now and then, saying that Harmon must finally be staying to enjoy his new life, but she doesn't buy it, thinking he'd just found a way to exploit himself or the next person who becomes Alicia just like he always did girls like her.)

A couple of weeks of this made me pretty happy when Jenn texted and asked if I'd take her to a movie because people keep carding her when she tries to buy a ticket to Hustlers.  I kind of laugh but say yes, heading out to the Bronx on my next day off to meet up.

She's not at the theater when I arrive and hadn't sending me messages, so I get a bit worried and walk to her address.

I get buzzed up when I say it's Magda for Paola, but when I open the door, it's her "Mom", adding that she's sorry, but the school confiscates students' phones when they've got detention.  I ask what that is about, and she just shrugs.  "I try to just let Jenn be, but if she's anything like me, she is not taking the whole racism thing well.  Pray you don't ever have to find out just how many awful ways there are to refer to Latinas in general and Puerto Ricans specially!"

I actually smiled a bit at that.  "I am a black man under all this, you know."

"Right!  Sorry!  Jenn told me.  Is it okay if I say you wear your new skin well, though?"

"I hope so; gotta keep a younger man interested, after all."

"I hear that, even if my guy sometimes seems to forget that he agreed just as much as I did overnight."  We laughed, and then she said that maybe we should lean into the middle-aged woman stereotype and have a couple glasses of wine while we wait.  Like I said, I'm willing.

It's more or less like doing the same thing with real middle-aged women; we tell stories and laugh a bit too loud, only hers are about trying to come up with excuses for why a grown man in the body of a ten-year-old girl is acting out at school and mine are about subjecting myself to a mammogram because I'd been wearing bras a size too small.  Maybe it was the wine talking, but I feel like she's the first person to find my story of trusting fate with J.T. romantic without reservation.

We were on our second glasses when Jenn and her "sister" arrived and ditched their things.  The others turned down the chance to come along, much to Jenn's relief.  I guess I technically wound up part of a fake family too, but Harmon/Alicia is not someone I have to deal with regularly.

"So, detention.  What's that about?"

I was trying to make conversation as we headed to the box office, but she just grunted.  "I'm pretty sure you mean well, Daryl, but can I just hang out with someone who will treat me as an adult and not talk about high school?"

"Sure, no problem.  So, you've been in New York longer than me - should I root for the Knicks or the Nets?"

She didn't really have an opinion on that, but it did get her to talk about the differences between the boroughs a bit, and how there could be bigger differences in traveling a few stops on the subway than across the country, and that was before trying to bluff how good your Spanish was.

The movie itself want bag, although I was expecting a heist more than a scam.  Jenn liked it, although I tried not to look in her direction too often, because I'd feel guilty even though I know she's not really a kid and is not like I've ever really been any sort of prude about what teenagers song some boobs or hearing the word "fuck".  What kind of middle-aged white woman am I becoming?

One who at least can joke about how J-Lo being 50 makes me both feel better about the age that the Inn made me and also kind of saggy in spots, I guess.  Jenn laughed at that, and asked if I'd ever tried any of those shoes, because she once bought a really ridiculous pair to give her boyfriend an anniversary surprise and felt ridiculous.  I said the original Magda had a pair, and I tried them on while sitting on the bed, but knew I'd fall flat on my face if I tried to stand, so they went to Goodwill.  She just pushed hers to the back of the closet and almost completely forgot them, but now she wonders what became of them, since she hasn't heard about new-Jenn breaking her neck.

"That got dark."

"Yeah, I'm just...  I don't know.  You ever wish you could go to therapy for this?"

"Every damn day."

"Now try it when you're not old enough to drink and have to get up for school every morning."  She yawned, and we split up at the subway.

I've got to admit, I'm really excited about J.T. Being back home tonight.  I'm ready to feel like myself again.

-Magdaryl

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: Not for Tourists

I was a bit surprised when J.T. suggested we do Times Square on New Year's Eve; I'd kind of expected it to be the sort of thing a longtime New Yorker like him dismisses as being for tourists and newbies, but apparently not.  Rather, it's in the category of things that are too good to be surrendered to the tourists, although folks aren't necessarily combative about it. 

It is, in a lot of ways, one of the most true representations of the life I've fallen into as J.T.'s girlfriend.  There's something kind of fantastic everywhere, especially with regard to music, cameras you learn to ignore, noise, tight quarters, and your own little bubble inside them.  There was some of that in Chicago, but not to the extent there is here.

And in Chicago, he was Elaine and more or less anonymous beyond being generally sexy.

He doesn't exactly attract paparazzi right now, but it was the sort of night where we bumped into strangers, at least to me.  He knows a fair chunk of the people in the entertainment press around here, and a few wanted a quote about what he had planned for the New Year, which was a good chance to plug his play.  He hand-sells it a bit too, when someone recognizes him and asks what he's doing now.  It's not exactly top-tier show business, but it's kind of neat.

The chilly, damp weather kind of had me dressed up in weird layers, though - little black dress for the after party, but also thigh-high boots and black pantyhose because it'll be cold, and then a coat to cover everything up.  By the time the ball drops, I'm really questioning all of this - not only is this my first time being on my feet in heels for such a long stretch, but I felt pretty stupid wearing an underwire all night when the top of my dress was underneath my coat. 

Still, the heels make it easier to kiss to ring in the new year, and when we wind up in one of his co-stars' apartments, it makes for a bit of a ta-da! moment when the girls finally come out.  Not that anybody aside from the other women of a certain age and maybe some of the gay guys really act impressed.  I'm honestly not sure what that's about - maybe they find me kind of campy when I start talking hip-hop and video games or express a strong preference for Android over Apple - but it's kind amusing, especially when someone has talked to me under the assumption that I must own an airline rather than work for one to have a boyfriend so much younger than my apparent age.

That goes away once I'm a couple drinks in - I still notice people looking at me kind of funny, but I care a bit less - and it turned out our hosts had a karaoke machine.  Magda's voice isn't write the instrument I had as myself or Elaine, but I suspect that makes it more fun for everybody.

It was almost 5am by the time we got home and I could take off my shoes before ditching the dress and taking off that bra.  I gave my breasts a bit of a heft after that ("boy, you guys are demanding!"), then stopped and prodded a bit more before walking to the bed where J.T. was already half-asleep.  I climbed up and straddled him.  "Hey, squeeze my tits."

"If you insist."  He reached up and started fondling, until I grabbed one wrist and guided it.

"Not like that.  Like you're trying to find something.  You know how they're supposed to feel better than me."

He gave me a weird look, but gave my right breast a harder, less pleasant squeeze, then shook his head.  "Feels normal to me."  We joked a bit about my breasts feeling normal, which led to a little playing while I was already on top of him.

I had a hard time shaking the feeling, though, poking around every time I changed clothes, getting worried whether I thought I could feel anything or not.  I googled "breast self-examination", tried that, and then after a couple days I made an appointment for a mammogram, which was today.

The radiologist was friendly, actually trying to talk me out of it at first, saying that they actually don't recommend the procedure for women as young as me these days, at least not as a matter of course, and I smirked at how I don't hear that very often.  I still said I wanted to be sure, and she shrugged and led me into a room.

I guess I was lucky to have a woman examining me in teems of it being more comfortable, although maybe a male radiologist would have speed me enough not to go through with it.  Initially, it was just a surreal experience, as I took off my shirt and set my right breast on a shelf.  The doctor lowered another, and I squawked a bit as it started to compress the tissue.  She looked at me and asked if I was okay, because the closer they can get the plates together, the better the image will be.  I said I was just a bit surprised and tried to tough it out, but I wouldn't be surprised if the plates only got a half-inch closer together before I said that was okay.  She nodded, went behind a screen, and hit a button.

Then we repeated it three more times, getting both top-down and side-to-side images for each breast.  It hurt like hell, just another example about how guys can be real wimps about pain (I initially typed "pussies", but that hardly seems right).  I winced a bit putting my bra back on afterward.  It was going to hurt if they were hanging, but I guess I have a bit more to learn about wearing the right underwear for the occasion still.

The doctor was able to show me pictures fairly quickly, and assured me there was nothing out of the ordinary, although there was a fair rate of both false positives and negatives - was I sure I'd felt a lump?

I immediately felt embarrassed.  "I, uh, guess maybe not."

"You sure?  Tests are one thing, but a woman knows her body."

Not necessarily, I thought.  I felt a weird sort of shame with that, like I should know my body better, or should have grilled Magda and Lindsey on this, so that I wouldn't think a bruise from bumping into something while wearing too tight a bra or something like that might be cancer.  I felt like apologizing to this doctor for wasting her time.

J.T. tried to look unconcerned when I got home.  "How'd it go?"

"Healthy boobs.  Sore, but healthy.  Be glad you were to young for this when you weren't yourself."

"True that, though it's not like Elaine's cramps were any picnic."

"Word.  Don't miss that.  But, man, today was something.  It's one thing to laugh off people because they don't know the real you, but this was kind of real, y'know?"

"Yeah.  I'm glad you're up for it."  He kissed me on the forehead, gently.

"Thanks.  The guys who won't get here for a while don't know what they're in for, but I guess that's what happens when you actually become a woman, and not just a guy visiting that sort of life."

-Magdaryl

Daryl/Magda: Mismatches

If you're going to get changed into a different person, and it looks like there's a good chance you'll stay that way, there's a certain logic in moving away from both your real hometown and where your new identity lived, and to someplace like New York City.  Many large cities would probably do the trick, I suppose, but New York is so big and is such a hub that I can do things that might get noticed in other cities without much question.  It may be something as small as sitting down at a lunch counter in Harlem and having some fried chicken without much more than a little side-eye, or nobody at the movie theater caring about a weird double feature.  They'll let you be.

We were initially kind of worried about that when J.T. and I started going out, especially since he was kind of famous at one point, but there were some pictures taken, a couple websites that tried to frame a cougar narrative, but, eventually, it sort of became no big deal.  Older woman/younger guy is unusual, but seeing we dig each other makes it something of a non-story.

And we do like each other.  For a while we thought it might just be the thrill of the new or unusual, but I've been here for a couple months, and it hasn't always been complete fun, we've become really comfortable together, and good.  He was kind of nervous about me moving in at first, but it works, and we both look forward to how our weird schedules intersect.

Unfortunately, his rehearsal schedule didn't line up well with Pete's anti-Halloween dinner, which was aggressively come-as-you-are because folks like us don't need another level of make-up, costuming, and play-acting.  He isn't really sure he belongs at that sort of thing anyway, having just been someone else for one cycle and then dropped back into his life like it hasn't happened until I showed up.  Not that everyone who came is in my boat - Annette came, although to be fair, she's 22 and basically spent all he college years as someone else, so most of her friends from that period are Inn people.

She was one of the first to get to the function room Pete had rented, enthusiastically helping decorate; I imagine they love her attitude at whichever publishing company is exploiting her as an unpaid intern.  She taped Pete on the shoulder and broke off to say hi and asking if I wanted a name tag, which was more complicated than usual - between the standard "Hello, My Name Is ____" and the "My Pronouns Are ___/___" that has apparently started gaining use,  she customized them to include "Also Known As ____".  Hers said "Annette", "Ravi & Benjamin", "she/her"; Pete's said "Pete", "a bunch", "he/him".  I opted for "Daryl", "Magda", "they/their". I half expected them to tell me to choose a side, but Annette said anybody being a jerk about how someone else identified was getting kicked out.

Pete gave a little chuckle as she went back to decorating.  "Never thought Millennials and their political correctness would make a bit of sense, but in this case..."

"Dude, you do know that I'm not actually this old, and she's, like, whatever we're calling the generation after that, right?"  Not wanting to get into that, I looked down and raised an eyebrow.  "Wearing heels to your 'come as you are' party, huh?"

"Am I?  Holy shit, I am!  I swear, April's feet have been deformed by long hours in the Executive Assistant uniform to the point where I walk around my house on tiptoe and boots with a couple extra inches feel normal.  But I guess it beats being short.  I'm not quite Tylerie tiny, but every inch counts."  I was kind of surprised he picked up my play on Tyler's names, but apparently it tickled him.

He asked how I was enjoying Magda's job, and I shrugged.  "It's not really what I want to do with the rest of my life, but it's something I can do for now.  I kind of like punching a clock rather than working long hours to make an impossible deadline, too.  At least for now.  How about you?"

He shrugged.  "Young, old, man, woman, black, white, asian, I'm apparently the glue that holds an office together.  Speaking of which..."  A matching couple was filling in their name tags, and Pete brought me over to introduce us.  "Daryl, this is Jenn and David; guys, this is Daryl. Or Magda.  'Magdaryl'. It's up in the air right now."

That immediately clicked with the man in the skinny jeans and blow-dried hair.  "You're the one dating J.T.!  I had such a crush on him when I was in junior high!"  She suddenly realized how she must look.  "Not the usual person to say that, huh?"

"You'd be surprised."  I turned to her date, wearing a much looser pair of jeans and t-shirt, hair gathered into a ponytail at the base of the head rather than higher-up.  "Don't be jealous; J.T. is very much taken."  I extended a hand and David grabbed it kind of tentatively, maybe not sure how to process the flurry of names Pete had thrown at him along with the camisole under my White Sox Jersey.  I want wearing makeup but did have hairpins in, so I was sending some mixed signals.

I thought he and I might have something to talk about, given our similar age and sex changes, but he didn't seem to like he wanted to; honestly, even though I as talking sports and action movies and the like while complaining about bras and heels, I think he saw me as too close to the worst way he could see things going for him.

Jenn wasn't really negative, at least; as much as she clearly either hadn't stated thinking like a guy or was relishing the chance not to, she complained less and lived vicariously more.  She had plenty of questions about where Tyler got his shoes and apparently listened to a lot of the same podcasts as Annette. 

We all mingled a bit, but never really got far from one another - Pete has a pretty decent contact list of Inn people, but even in New York, there weren't enough for the size of the space he rented, at least that could do this kind of Halloween party (or were in the mood for it).  I'd kind of hoped to make some contacts that might give me a chance to maybe find a new career, but that didn't really happening.  Eventually I ran back into Jenn, who had had a few.  "This is the weirdest party I've ever been to.  So many girls and it's a complete sausage fest!  Shouldn't it be, like 50/50?  Or 25/25/25/25, cause some folks stay the same, generally speaking?"

"Well, I figure those guys just shrug and deal with it, right?  They know what they're doing and don't have to reach out.  I don't know why there's not more girls who became guys here or on the blog and stuff, though."

"Oh, trust me, most of us are not going to complain about bosses suddenly listening and shorter bathroom lines and clothes that have actual useful sizes."  I turned around and saw a cheerful-looking guy with a somewhat unruly Afro but a big smile; his name tag said "Juliet", "Jonah", "he/him".

"Well, when you put it like that..."  Jenn probably would have expanded on it, but David came over and was clearly ready to be done for the night, so they left.

Juliet waved and said they probably had the right idea.  "I bet your legs are staying to run down like my brain is."  She wasn't wrong, so we headed out to grab a snack (another great thing about New York is bakeries open until 3am).

It turns out we are kind of opposite sides of the same coin, me a young black man who became a middle-aged white woman, her a white woman in her early fifties who changed to a young black guy by choice.  Apparently she and her husband visited the Inn a few years back and made it back to their old life okay, only to have him go off on a "business trip" this May that left someone else in his body to explain he was leaving her for someone else, as someone else - apparently they'd been carrying on this affair for years and found the perfect new lives to claim.  She despaired, and then when she found out through another Inn person she knew that Krystle was putting this boy's body for sale--

"Please tell me you don't refer to black men as 'boy' or just casually talk about them being for sale."

"What?  Oh God, no...  At least I don't think...  I didn't mean that!"

"It doesn't matter what you mean, it matters what people hear.  You've gotta be real careful - just because you may still think like a white woman and talk about white woman things, coming out of that mouth, it's gonna sound like you're making fun to some people."

"I guess.  Hardly seems right."

"Welcome to being black in America.  I miss a lot about it, but..."  I suddenly felt pretty bad about finishing that sentence; as much as things in my real life can be unfair, I kind of feel like escaping them by becoming white is a cheat, and don't really feel grateful for it.

"Hm.  Well, I guess that's the karmic price for getting a chance to start again in college.  Not that being black is a price!  Ugh, I'm not so terrible at this when I don't have to think about it.  Or am I?"

"You probably are, but don't worry too much.  I was a giant nerd who didn't fit in either, and I turned out okay enough for J.T."

"But did you have to deal with this?"  She pointed at the mop of hair on her head.  "I let it grow out because all the cool black people when I was growing up in the 70s did this, but it just won't behave!"

"When did you last have a trim?"

"I don't know, two or three weeks ago?"

"Yeah, you're gonna want to find a barber you like and go every week.  It doesn't take that long, and if you just sit and listen while you wait, you'll get a pretty good education on being a black man."

"Sounds like this education could be more expensive than the college one!"

"Well, just think of what you're not spending on makeup, bras, pantyhose..."

"I guess.  Well, I did decide I wanted to do things differently.  But fair warning, I'm going to call you a lot."

I said that was okay, but she hasn't yet.

By the time I got home, J.T. was on the couch, watching TV.  "How was Curse Club?"

I say down and put my feet on his lap for him to massage.  "Kind of fun.  Weird having everyone treat me like I'm one of the ones who knows what he's doing."

"She's doing, based on last night."

I took the name tag I'd removed and folded in half out of my purse.  "They're doing, based on this."

"I'm not sure I approve of you going to parties where they don't think of you as a woman.  Does that make me a bad Inn Person?"

"Nah, I like that you know who you are and want me to feel as sure, although I kind of like not being sure.  Makes us special."

"Well, I guess opposites attract."

I thought about joking about "Junah" (portmanteau nickname a work in progress) then, but things were heading in a fun direction, so I just said "I guess so" and leaned in for a kiss.

-Magdaryl

Daryl/Magda: Clean Breaks, Maybe Not Clean Starts

I didn't exactly have a farewell with Harmon, and I'm sure that surprised the neighbors who had lived near Magda and Alicia for years, but what can you expect?  We just met a few weeks ago and he's still angry that my deciding to do what I want with this life has thrown a monkey wrench into his.  But how long did someone his age think he was going to live rent-free with mommy, anyway?

I can't say I exactly traveled light moving to New York, but I did purge a fair amount by sending them to the original Magda in Austin.  We're still kind of feeling each other out via Facebook Messenger right now, kind of unevenly, with her giving me pointers on how the various bits of her work go, although that's going to become a bit less relevant now that I'm at a different airport.  I think we both kind of want to find some common ground in how we both wound up where we are because of a relationship, but we're also both looking at the others situation as being kind of weird.

Still, we're doing it, and I couldn't help but feel extremely excited when I got off the plane in New York.  This want the life I'd originally planned, but even though I was going by Magda's name, I was starting to make her life my own.  As I walked past the crowds and chaos of the airport, I started arriving the pros and cons of keeping this job in my head.  As what is basically a retail job goes, it's not bad; there's a union and benefits and Magda has earned herself some seniority.  But it's neither the specific job or the kind of job I spent for years in college for, and it's not one that has a lot of potential for advancement.  But what else am I going to do?  My Microsoft certifications are in someone else's hands, and I don't necessarily have a lot of my own skills with which to start over at this point in my new life.

But J.T. was home when I rang the bell, and he smiled when he got a look at me.  The months as a woman and one as this one hasn't really given me the chance to figure out "subtle" yet, at least in terms of dressing, so I showed up at his apartments in jean shorts that, while tight, still go almost reach the knee, and an orange tank top that shows my boobs off with a pretty tight bra.  And sandals, because I have been spending a lot of time in airports and know not to go in for a lot of strappy or knotty bullshit when flying by now. 

"Hey," I say, "we're doing this."

"We are," he says, and pulls me into his apartment.  It's been a few weeks, and our clothes are on the floor fast.

We spoon for a while, and then I get up, slipping on my panties and his t-shirt.  I start walking around the place opening closet doors.

He looks up.  "What're you doing?"

"Looking for a spot to put my clothes.  Even if I were inclined to live out of a suitcase, this stuff wrinkles."

He got up and pulled some things out of the closet I was looking in.  "I guess that'll do for now."

"Oh, that should be plenty. I don't have a whole lot more on the way."

"Yeah, but that'll go to your place, right?"

I stopped putting dresses on hangers.  "What do you mean, 'my place'?"

"Just that, you know, I figured... at first...  I mean, we've only been together a few months."

"Dude, it may only have been a few months, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty damn committed here!  You can't tell me you haven't noticed the big white tits."  I smiled while I said it, but I have to admit, I felt a tiny bit of panic.  Were we coming into this with such different ideas?  I know neither of us had really talked about forever or even really specifics, but, still...

"I know you are, I just...  Look, I know we've got something really special here, but sometimes it's good to have your own space, you know?  And if it doesn't work out, I mean, it's not like you haven't told new-Daryl that he can be you for good...  Have you?"

"No, but the way I see it is, the very fact that he's planning to go back to the Inn next year means we can't afford to screw around... metaphorically."  I smiled, hopefully wickedly.  "We've got to be all-in.  I didn't become Magda because I wanted to be a middle-aged white woman, or because I wanted to play the field.  I did it so we can make sure that this, you and me, is gonna work.  Should I bail now?"

"Oh, no.  I just didn't really realize how, uh, intense this was gonna be."

"That's okay.  And remember, intense isn't a bad thing--"

I grabbed his unit (confession: I bought something in a San Francisco sex shop so I could get used to the feeling of it in both my hands and pussy, though I haven't had the guts to put it in my mouth yet), which responded quickly, and we made it back to bed.  He fell asleep after, and I went back to unpacking.

Still, I hope Pete texts me soon, given that it looks like he's coming back to New York.  We might have stuff to talk about.

-Daryl/Magda

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

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

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