Lindsey: Just Me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Lindsey Curtis

Lindsey/Magda: Age-Appropriate

The air-travel business can be weird, its own little culture that's kind of old-fashioned (to be polite) and sexist in ways that show up in strange ways even if you're not us.  For example, about a month ago, Harmon started wearing skirts to work at every opportunity, and minis at that, a couple inches above the knee.  I was kind of excited to see the change, because even my boyfriend finally accepting that he's got great legs is not exactly the best way a relationship can go, I figured that maybe him being more cool with the present shape of his body might mean we could be more at ease hanging out together, even if it's doing mother-daughter stuff.

Nope.  Apparently, short skirts are a privilege that flight attendants get after they've gone through a probationary period, and it's not just that Harmon can be more than a little status-conscious, but pilots and other airline/airport staff use it to identify who might be young and wide-eyed.  It's actually not unusual for some women to stick with lower hemlines to continue attracting that sort of interest, but that's not Harmon.  I was a bit surprised that this was the tradeoff he went for, but apparently it's gotten some persistent group of guys on his back, even if the cost is passengers giving him more of that sort of attention. 

Myself, I was getting Magda's annual physical, which was a couple hours filled with tricky questions.  Do I find myself getting tired more easily than I did a year ago?  Yeah, but I was in my twenties a year ago!

I kid, but I do kind of kick myself for not doing it when I first arrived in Oakland after the Inn and not dragging Harmon along.  It seems like an obvious, sensible first step to living someone else's life, although I guess a lot of the time people aren't ready to be poked and prodded and have all those changes made real in clinical terms.  Heck, I might have considered being off this one and leaving it for the real Magda if I'd realized that the doctor was going to advise scheduling a mammogram.

There's a part of me that's kind of upset that, paging through the blog, it doesn't seem like anyone who started out as a guy has been subjected to one of those (only Tyler seems to have hit the right window, but apparently "Judith" was spared).  I'm not sure whether it will be better or worse in twenty years when my real body has enough miles on it for one to be recommended, since I'm not so busty.

I wound up joking about this with some of the other middle-aged ladies at the airport while we were having lunch (well, not the "my real body" part), saying it was awful and we shouldn't put up with it.  Someone saw a guy with a vendor's badge stiffening and asked if women taking about they're bodies made him uncomfortable, and he just said no, but that a mammogram saved his sister's life, which changed the discussion a bit.  Didn't make it bad, though, especially when I informed him that the doctor didn't find any sort of lump.  He was pretty cool about not rising to the bait that the other ladies waved in front of him where my breasts were concerned.

I ran into him again the next day when I was grabbing a Diet Coke from his newsstand, and we had a few minutes to talk.  I felt a little strange when he complimented my English and accent, since he'd been in the country roughly the same length of time as the real Magda and still messed it up occasionally, but given that I've talked to her on the phone and can probably only tell that she's an immigrant because I already knew, it's okay, I guess. 

It got busy, he asked if I wanted to pick the conversation we were having up after work, and I said yes without realizing I'd just made a date.  I was about to try and find a way to ball or, but Harmon texted to say he'd been assigned to a flight, and I kind of figured, better than sitting home alone.  It's not like anything was going to happen.

I can't pretend that I didn't feel a little excited as I ditched my uniform and impulsively grabbed a skirt, camisole, and cardigan rather than the jeans and sweater that had been my first intention.  I want really trying to impress this guy, but it had kind of felt different from the others who hit on me/Magda, and I kind of didn't want to say he wasn't worth the effort while still not doing enough to make me feel bad about doing this for someone other than my boyfriend (or at least the guy who will be my boyfriend again in a couple of months).  I apologized when I returned to the living room - I'd offered him a drink, but he doesn't touch alcohol - and he said it was nothing.

We found a nice place to eat - vegetarian - and chatted.  His kids are in college and couldn't wait to get out of the house, so he thought it must be nice to have "Alicia" still around.  It didn't take a whole lot of fusing the details to say I appreciated it but it was certainly a different dynamic.  He bragged about his kids a lot, got on the subject of traffic and public transportation, and similar stuff.  He was a bit surprised at how easily I swiped notifications away and texted someone back on my phone, but left that behind when I mentioned that one was informing me that my mammogram was clear.  He seemed pretty relieved, and blushed like crazy when I suggested he wanted to get his hands on those breasts and didn't want to accidentally run across any gross cancer.

Mostly, though, it wasn't really sexual; he just seemed to like me.  He spent a lot of time listening, which was kind of a new experience.  A lot of guys my own real age just seem to have nothing to say to women and ones Harmon's age, when they're not even hornier than younger guys, tend to feel (rightly or wrongly) that they've got more to pass on to you than vice versa, whether they're actually teachers or not.  And, I admit, I've always kind of liked that, but having a guy really talk to me like a peer, someone with shared experiences and interests, that was kind of cool too.

We saw a movie afterward, and I've got to admit, as much as I liked this guy's company and respect, it was one of those "women past menopause want romance too" things, and it did kind of remind me that, despite current appearances, we didn't really have that much in common.  I let him drive me home, said it was nice making friends with him, and then started browsing Netflix until I feel asleep on the couch.  I told myself that I didn't really need to feel lousy about stepping out on Harmon, but by the time I woke up the next morning, I did wonder what "back to normal" is going to be like.

-Lindsey/Magda

Harmon Keller/Alicia Polawski: The Briefest Consideration

One of Lindsey's current favorite ways to mock me is to call me melodramatic, as it is apparently a term I would occasionally apply to millennials like herself, although likely not so often as she implies.  Most of the time, the epithet is misplaced but I cannot deny that, in the aftermath of the man currently wearing my face making me look like a fool at a conference in December, I started to wonder if, perhaps, I should abandon the life I had lived for over sixty years.  Though I would certainly have the opportunity to produce important new work for years to come, would I be able to attract good collaborators or re-engage with the dozens of other academic matters which my substitute had allowed to languish?  The thought of having to rebuild my reputation at this point in my life was dreadful.

It was awful enough, in fact, that I started to think seriously about leaving my life behind.  Under that scenario, I would not remain Alicia Polawski - the thought of living my days out like this sends a chill down my spine - but I would find some other life to live.  The would be an element of randomness, and I might back off once I see what is available, but as the time to start booking rooms in an appropriate chain came, it seemed like a reasonable option to consider.

I did not share this with Lindsey - she has the date reservations open circled on the calendar, a reminder in her phone, and frequent conversations with the Coopers about what they are doing with our lives, commitments being made, and the like.  She has also taken to creating scenarios where somehow the Inn's magic can be acknowledged and legal arguments can be made about how one has acted while living another's life, or steering people to the Inn.  It is complete sophistry that requires one to treat the Inn as simultaneously an unacknowledgeable force of nature and something that can be brought into a court of law, and this pointless.  She claims the ethical considerations are interesting in and of themselves, and that it's a way to quantify what Inn visitors can expect from each other.  As such, she would very likely disapprove of my leaving someone else with my life and appropriating another.

Rather than consider theory, I was instead more ingesting talking to people with practical experience, which was why, when it was time to choose routes for January, I made a request to have a few days off in a row in Boston.  It may not be a particular favorite place to visit, especially in the middle of winter, but it has the biggest cluster of people living lives other than the one that they were born into that I know about, and I thought it might be useful to learn what particular challenges such people faced. 

We met in the Changeling bar, which took some getting to - once I de-planed, it was an expensive cab ride to get across Boston and Cambridge to the suburb of Arlington - but which the people I was meeting said was where they liked to meet for Inn stuff, both because it could be difficult for Ashlyn to get away and because they liked to support each other.  So, that was where I met Ashlyn, Penelope, Ray, Annette, and Yuan-wei.

I was still wearing my uniform from the flight, which made it easy enough for them to call me over.  Given the range of ages and Yuan-wei being Chinese, it was easy enough to match names to faces, although it still took me somewhat by surprise to see that Yuan-wei wore stockings and heels while Annette was wearing denim jeans, with Ashlyn in a tight top with holes at the shoulders.  I knew, intellectually, that they had all been in other shapes longer than I and had acclimated, but it still surprised me that they would choose such feminine attire during their own free time.  Though only Ashlyn truly had the same sort of figure that I had been cursed with, the attention it garnered was enough of a bother that I could hardly fathom wanting to encourage it.  But, of course they are closer to their apparent age than I, so maybe they saw it differently.

They would soon prove unsympathetic to my enquiries.  Initially, they offered their condolences, tempered with surprise that the Coopers would not be relinquishing or lives, since that was not the impression they got from Lindsey's post of a few days before.  As soon as I said that, too the best of my knowledge, they were in fact planning to return to their own lives, the whole group seemed at a loss for words until Annette broke the silence.

"You'd...  You'd just let your real life go?"

"Young lady, ones reputation is ones life in academia.  If that has been irrevocably damaged, is it really my life any more?"

"Well, yeah," she answered.  "I mean, that's not really your whole life.  There's family, and friends, and...  You know, everything but the job."

I shrugged, mentioning that my patents were gone and I had no children of my own.  There are not that many ties that would be severed.

Penelope, the writer, said that may be true in one direction, but not necessarily the other.  "Have you ever heard of Impostor Syndrome?  I know a bunch of successful writers who are almost crippled by it, thinking that their success is an illusion and undeserved, and any minute people are going to see they're a fraud.  Now, I don't get the impression you are anything less than competent confident in your element, but I want as Arthur Milligan, either.  Still, unless you manage to parachute into a complete blank slate, you're going to get hit with the same symptoms, only for real.  My wedding almost destroyed me, for instance, and I need to take pills to sleep any day I've had any sort of meaningful interaction with the original Penny's parents.  And the fear of other moms judging me is...  Look, I'm happy most of the time.  If I hadn't gone to the Inn that first time, I would have never met this guy, and if Germy hadn't stolen my life, I never would have considered trying to make it work, but it's not destiny and it's not easy; it's being lucky and having outlets into which I can channel my other selves."

Her red-haired friend picked that up.  "What she said.  I thought my own life being stolen was a blessing in disguise, justification for continuing to be Ashlyn, which was and is really fun.  But there is something missing sometimes, especially since you never really know what that easy, fun life is going to be like ten years down the road."

"Well, I wouldn't be subjecting myself to the change in sex if I can possibly help it."

"It's not just that," said Annette, "I went from female to male at first, and that made some things easier, but letting go of your identity is hard.  I was so glad when I could be myself again."

I turned to look at Yuan-wei, and she held up her hands.  "Don't look at me to contradict her!  My life has gotten ten times better since my brother's been part of it again, and I still can't bring myself to call Benny by 'Jordan'.  I'm doing really well, but I ain't gonna tell you the decision want fucking difficult!"

I wasn't convinced, but soon the food arrived and ended the conversation.  The people who knew each other wound up playing catch-up, and I eventually wound up waiting with Yuan-wei for a car back to her apartment, where I would be staying the night.  She stared at me, squinted a bit, and then asked my cup size.

"I beg your pardon!"

She then told me about the last few scenes of her student film needing to shoot over the weekend despite the lead actress having walked off the set, leaving a few custom-fitted costumes behind.  I may not be quite as busty as this "Bree" person, but I was closer to fitting her costumes than Yuan-wei was herself.  Ashlyn had apparently been her first choice, but she couldn't schedule it around the bar's needs.  I blanched when he told me what the parts were - mindless sex robots dressed in skimpy costumes, assisting some sort of mad scientist - but it is somewhat difficult to turn down a request from the person offering one her spare room for the evening while waiting for a car to arrive in the freezing cold.

I should have summoned the courage to do so.

It was not as simple as just slipping on a costume, staring gladly, and saying a few inanities.  Because the performers whose secondary roles I was filling in was quite busty, Yuan-wei arranged to meet the girl doing costumes early, so that she could get a quick look at me before we made our way not to the locations, but to the a butcherie.  There she examined packages of chicken breasts in what seemed like a peculiar manner until buying a few before we continued to the laboratory space Yuan-wei had rented.  There was a small changing area rigged with curtains, and I was handed thong panties, white fishnet stockings, and something like a "sexy nurse" Halloween costume, including a corset.  I initially thought the panties would be the worst part of it, and thought I would get out of it without doing anything because the costume wouldn't zip up.  That when the costumer came in and with an absurdly casual "excuse me" stated paying at my chest, placing the chicken breasts in the costume's cups and arranging things so that someone looking from the outside could find no border between them and my own mammaries.  I thought that would be it until she had me lay down on a table and started sewing the costume up.  After that, someone came to apply make-up and I was given a mirror to look in.  I looked ridiculous.

Yuan-wei intercepted the seamstress as she was approaching with a frightening pair of shoes, bringing them to me herself.  "I'm gonna guess you've never worn anything with this sort of heel before."

"Of course I haven't."

"Well, just see how you do.  I looked over the footage last night and I think we can mostly get away with shooting you in the heels while standing still and maybe rig some 2x4s for you to walk on.  If we can't, try holding your arms out at an angle like this, palms parallel to the floor, and placing one foot directly in from of the other while looking straight ahead."  She demonstrated.  "The arms actually make you look sexier while helping your balance, but it's kind of showy for real life.  Your lines are pretty simple, and if you can't do breathy -- 'is there anything else, Doctor?' -- don't worry about it, I can ADR later."

I could do "breathy", of course - the more Marilyn Monroe I put into my lines, the more she liked it.   Though I stumbled a few times early on and was grateful for the moments between takes when I could sit and rest my feet, the actual shooting was mostly rather dull.  Something like two hours over the course of the day seemed to just be spent on having me stand at a different location and stare blankly so that she could later paste it all together so that it looked like there were a half-dozen of these nurse/lab-assistant robots in the room.  There was also a great deal of tape on the floor, especially when shooting a scene where three of me were helping the main actor implant a man's brain in another robot's body, with some hastily-added dialogue about it being a different model.

I seemed some resentment from the cast, but paid it no heed.  They were just actors, after all, and ones who had to work for peanuts in student films.  I daresay by the end of the day, they had a certain level of respect for the work I was doing the first time around.

It was nevertheless a relief to get to the end of the day, be cut out of that costume and apply adhesive bandages to my ankles after a shower to wash the smell of raw meat and perspiration from my body. 

Sunday would prove an even more peculiar day.  While Saturday had mostly been building one particular sequence from every angle, Sunday had us shooting in Yuan-wei's apartment.  This time, I was given a similarly farcical French maid's costume - once again having my chest augmented and being sewn in - but I worked with different actors, including the director, who served as Bree's double so that I had a proper eye-line and voices to react to.  As a person who feels that work is best done focusing on one thing, this constant shifting was tremendously aggravating, and my cast-mates' occasional impatience entirely unwarranted.  We eventually got all we could done before I had to work a flight back out to the west coast.  It was clear Yuan-wei wanted to do more even if the cast was ready to be done hours ago, especially since I had established early on that I could not stay later than a certain time and all the innuendo withwhich Miss Lee's friend Ernesto and my co-star were peppering their conversation would be for naught.

After I had showered and changed into my work clothes, I saw Yuan-wei smirking.  "Still thinking of spending the rest of your life pretending to be someone else?"

I have her a withering look.  "Was that the point of this, young lady?"

"Nah, I just needed a girl who fit the costume, and you saved my [behind] there.  But, like Annette said a billion times while working on the script, it's never just one thing."

I suppose, I said, that this is true when writing a story, but I nevertheless wished I had more time to speak with the more experienced people about how they had applied their previous life experience to their new lives, but I had opted to give of my own time instead.

I did, perhaps, look at the various passengers on the flight "home" (and on others during the subsequent weeks) and find myself a little less convinced that I could drop into their lives with relatively little complication.  There would be details and obligations that I doubt I would have the stomach for.  In some ways, Alicia's life is relatively simple in that respect - she interacts with different people every day and lives with her mother, who is also someone else - but even more than when dealing with people on the plane, this solidified my lack of desire to have much dealing with the people more interested in Alicia's body than my mind.

My true life may have been somewhat battered, then, with undue setbacks, but it is clearly the best situation to which I can return, and I am quite happy that Lindsey and I have already been able to calculate the proper time to return to Old Orchard Beach and have booked the room where we shall become ourselves again.

-Harmon Keller

Lindsey/Magda: Christmas with Me

I haven't spent a lot of time here talking about the people living my life and Harmon's, in part because I have a fair amount in front of me between me and him to deal with, and while Harmon spent a lot of time getting Coop ready for a conference in the past month, Debbie has been no trouble at all.  I kind of left her a life at a loose end, recently graduated from college but still trying to get into law school, so she's been able to put the LSATs on hold.  She's taken a job as an office assistant so that I don't have a glaring hole in my work history when I get back, and she and Coop have been paying down my student loans like crazy, making way more of a dent in the principle than I would have.  Harmon and I initially felt kind of strange about it, since he'd never offered, but the way Debbie figured it, she and Coop were married, married couples shared the bills, and that my bills were now her bills doesn't change that.

You could do a lot worse than Debbie Cooper living your life, folks.

Perhaps because she and her husband are great people, though, the holidays were figuring to be tough on them; it would be the first one without the chance to spend any time with their kids, even though they're all adults now.  Neither me nor Harmon has any sort of particular Christmas tradition that they had any need to maintain, but they weren't totally sold on the holidays being just the two of them.  I said that I'd invite them if there were any room at the apartment, they said they appreciated the gesture, and that was it for a bit, because it's really awkward to invite someone to come but make them pay to stay at a hotel.  Eventually, though, Harmon pointed out that they'd be spending his money, not their own, so just get a hotel room, though it's not like we'd be around for Christmas.

I relayed that, and Debbie said it was okay if we missed the day so long as we got to have a family dinner and exchange gifts.  So they booked a trip, and I traded a shift so that I was working the terminal when their plane arrived on Christmas Eve, and spent the whole weekend feeling nervous about it because that meant that there would be no chance to duck seeing them if any of us realized this was a terrible idea.  I was downright nervous as the board updated their flight information, and then it landed, taxied, and pulled in.  Half-fortunately, I had to give a few people directions to baggage claim, so I couldn't just watch the people coming off and fret about it.  I wound up just looking up, seeing Coop and Debbie, and raising a hand so they knew who I was.  They stepped up the pace and soon found me.  Debbie started to hug me, like with her arms already on either side, before pulling back and asking if it was too weird.

It was kind of strange, but maybe not as weird as it would have been a few months ago, although Skype and Facebook hadn't prepared me to be looking slightly upward toward my own eyes, even though I had an inch of heel and Debbie was wearing Keds.  That almost made it easier, though, and I pulled her in.  I did only extend a hand to Coop, though; as much as something inside me would have liked the guy with Harmon's shape holding me, it would have felt like taking something that wasn't his to give.

Instead, I stood back and looked at Debbie, half-amazed at the reminder that I'm really that young, with some of her choices really driving it home.  "So, has anyone figured out that you're impostors yet because he doesn't freak out about you wearing workout pants in public?"

She laughed.  "Oh, he does that, but if I'm only going to have your legs for a year, I'm getting the most out of 'em, and these leggings don't work unless your legs are actually sticks...  Not that your legs - either set! --"

Coop laughed at that, and I joined in.  "It's okay, Debbie - I've got more curves now than I had six months ago, and I'm okay with both situations, so long as you're not looking to take up permanent residence."

"Tempting as it may be, we're a package deal, and I don't think I could talk Coop into it, no matter how dapper he looks in a bow tie now."

We laughed again, and I told her I had about an hour left on my shift if they wanted to wait, or they could check into their hotel and maybe Harmon and I could meet them for dinner.  They were happy to wait, although when I called Harmon, he said he had a lot to do before his red-eye.  I put in a good word for the Coopers at the airline's VIP lounge, got a flight boarded, and then helped them get to the hotel on public transportation.  I took them to a Thai place that wasn't closing early despite it being Christmas Eve, then left them to their jet lag.

Harmon was just leaving as I got home, and gave me a quick hug as we passed.  I was pleasantly surprised at the number of things he'd left under the tree; maybe a few months as a woman has him enjoying shopping a little more.

The Coopers arrived early in the morning, and I spent the morning learning to make a few of Debbie's family recipes while Coop found some stuff to fix around the house until basketball started at 9am (East Coasters, especially guys, grumble about time zone stuff until they discover that you literally get sports and other stuff all day).  It was a ton of fun, even if the press weren't quite done by the time I had to leave for work.  Debbie promised they'd only sick around long enough to jet them out of the oven, and if you can't trust yourself, who can you trust?

I had the 26th off  (yay inherited seniority!), so they were able to come back over and help me cook a ham.  Coop got involved in the cooking, too, peeling and mashing potatoes, making a supply run or two.  He was seeing the table when Harmon came in and saw his rightful face.

"Cooper."

"Professor Keller."

Nothing else was said, and Harmon retreated to his room to put away his work stuff and the grab some other clothes before heading to the bathroom and locking the door.  Debbie looked way more upset at that exchange than the the words would seem to for.  "We shouldn't have come.  I knew he'd still be upset."

Coop looked pained and offered to go back to the hotel.

I surprised myself a bit by stepping in.  "You'll do no such thing.  You did the best you could at that presentation, and he had no business asking you to go through with it.  He had two co-authors on that paper and could have just let them take the lead, but he can be so damn stubborn..."

Debbie put her hand on her husband's shoulder.  "She's right, you know.  Just as you have to accept that Shania can't do all your work, he should have made allowances.  You did the best you can, and I'm sure that he's come to realize that over the last couple weeks!"  I didn't contradict her, because I figured that Harmon not wanting to look bad by throwing a tantrum would have pretty much the same result.

I quickly ducked into my room to change out of my sweats, and Harmon had finished his shower by the time I came out.  He was wearing slacks and a not-really-ugly sweater, and raised his eyes at me in the Santa dress and hat.  "Looking to seduce Cooper?"

"No, I just want to try everything in Magda's closet and figured I wouldn't have another chance to wear this.  I'll go change."

"You'll do no such thing, because if you have to, then I have to."  Debbie was in the candy-cane tights again, with a pleated green skirt and a sparkly red top (she'd taken off her snowman sweater), while Coop looked very un-Harmon-like in jeans and at-shirt that looked like Santa's coat.  "Let's embrace the weird Christmas!"

We sat down at the table, ate, and talked about all the funny things that had happened this year.  I laughed a lot at Debbie's stories of my friends, while Coop nodded sagely at everything I could come up with about how airports and airlines have so many crazy layers of bureaucracy and security.  He talked about how academia was proving similar.  Eventually even Harmon joined in, talking about the "crash pad" apartments, guys who get hammered in first class, and the like.  It was kind of funny, in that we didn't really talk about being changed by the Inn, but just told these stories with a little bit of extra amazement at how bizarre the world could be.

No avoiding Inn stuff when we sat around the tree and exchanged presents.  I got Debbie and Coop a couple articles of clothing where she noted their size and said "I see what you're up to here", but mostly we tried to go for things that were either kind of silly or could work for us in both borrowed and real lives.

My big present for Harmon was a Kindle Fire preloaded with a few things that would make for bulky hardcovers.  I told him I knew he thought reading on a tablet wasn't the same, but this fit in his travel bag a lot better, and it would be easy to switch to Candy Crush in case he was afraid of having to explain why "Alicia" was reading graduate-level economics texts in a crowded apartment.

He surprised me with a pair of gift cards for custom bra fittings, saying that a passenger on a flight from San Francisco to New York had noticed him adjusting his straps during a flight and figured a flight attendant could give really good word-of-mouth for her start-up.  He said he was wearing one of his and was really amazed what a difference underwear that really fit could make in a woman's day, so he got me one for now and one for next summer.  Debbie went aaawwww and said now she wished Coop had been able to spend some time as a woman.

Coop's other present arrived that afternoon; he apparently makes eggnog with, like, a lot of rum in it every year, and got a few bottles speed to us, warning Harmon that he'd made it for some other folks in the faculty, so he may be fielding requests for more next year.

The party broke up at around seven, with Coop saying he hoped his body didn't run down this early ten or fifteen years from now.  It was the last time the four of us got to hang out together; with all the holiday travel, both Harmon and I were working a lot, and our shifts didn't really line up.  I think Harmon meet up with the Coopers once while I was working, and I get it - not only has Coop not fit into his life quite so easily as Debbie has fit into mine, but he both hadn't been in the area as much to show them around and tends to stay home rather than venture out as Alicia anyway.

I had a good time with them, though.  It's weird to say given all of our apparent ages and faces, but I felt kind of jealous of the folks who get to have the Coopers as their real full-time parents.  They're experienced, wise, and kind, and watching Debbie look like she really is my age made me feel like she must never have been out of touch.  She laughed at that - "you're not exactly the first generation to enjoy wearing short skirts, kid - you should have seen my older sisters in the 1970s!" - but I think she appreciated me saying so, even if I do look old enough to be her mother.

I made sure I worked the terminal when they flew out Sunday evening as well, and smiled as I watched them get on the plane holding hands and nobody seemed to be snickering about the age difference.  Sometimes, I guess, no matter what the Inn might do, you can just spot the good people who belong together.

-Lindsey/Magda

Harmon Keller/Alicia Polawski: Too Much Time as These Women

As a man of above-average intelligence, I should have foreseen that agreeing to go out with Alicia's co-workers when one had a birthday would simply result in being drawn into more of those absurd situations, but I suspect that one welcome actually realize that he is in quicksand until he tries to get some traction.  Once you have done the first of these things, people know that you will do them, and they cease being presented as an option.

As an example which Lindsey mentioned in her last missive, there was a memo in the weeks before Halloween saying that employees were free to perform their duties in costumes, so long as they were family-friendly, on that holiday.  Indeed, we were encouraged to do so, as it helped remind customers that air travel was fun (despite the converted effort on the past of the airlines to remove any joy from the experience over the last few decades), and I could be certain that the other members of my usual crew would eagerly participate.  I held out hope that I would not get the call that day, but alas, I did.

Lindsey had that day off , and while I would not say she was eager to use me as an oversized fashion doll, she certainly have the impression that it had been in the back of her mind.  As expected, the Halloween costumes she had worn to parties and such in previous years were wholly inappropriate.  I had let out a sigh, practicing how I could spin that as the reason why I was in my regular uniform, when Lindsey opened up a different box in Alicia's closet, said "oh my God" like it was three sentences, and pulled out the girl's cheerleading uniform from high school.  "You have to!"

"Must I?"

"Well, I suppose you don't have to, but, c'mon, you've got one Halloween like this.  I know you've got an itty-bit of cheerleader in you somewhere, and what better chance will you ever have to let it out for a few hours?"  I was about to object, but then she pointed to the French maid costume I had dropped on the bed.  "It's not like you've got better options."

And that is how I wound up with Lindsey making me over into a cheerleader so that I could "go to work", a scene which I suspect would have looked just as questionable to any onlooker who believed us to be mother and daughter.  She put me in a brassiere that I swear was a size too small because she said my breasts should be "perky", especially since this is a high-school uniform that didn't show any cleavage (thank God!) - or at least, that's what all the bustier girls on her high school team were like.  Thankfully, she wasn't entirely concerned with making me look like an easy lay - she found a pair of biking shorts for me to wear between my panties and the pleated skirt.  By the time she'd found the socks with the stripes and white sneakers, I was well-covered from neck to toss aside from my knees, though it hid none of my current shape.  She put my hair in a ponytail and did my makeup differently - less eyeshadow, more rouge - and the girl in the mirror looked the part extremely well.  I probably could not actually convince anybody that I was a teenager, but I looked less removed.  What foolishness would I allow myself to be talked into by the time this was over?  I am probably lucky that Lindsey did not have time to dye my hair blonde.

I added Alicia's name-tag and put on a long coat so as not to look ridiculous on the subway and while walking through the airport - most days I am merely glad for the employee fast lane because going through airport security just to get to work every morning would lead me to quit this job and damn the consequences, but not having to show my costume until I was actually standing in the jetway was a close second that day.  The usual group was there, with the shift leader dressed as a pirate and sighing that she could no longer pull "cheerleader" off, Elgin dressed as a doctor, and the one whose birthday we had celebrated the week before was apparently keen that we know she was wearing the outfit of Marvel's Captain Marvel rather than DC's, which sounds like an exceptionally tedious thing of which to keep track.

I truly cannot fathom why young women spend a day when they can dress any way imaginable putting on outfits that, by my reckoning, make them five times more likely to get their bottom slapped by some random idiot.  It was exhausting on top of being humiliating, and Lindsey asking how many I thought were tenured professors when I finally arrived back at the apartment was not nearly as funny as she thought it was.

She been making more of those comments of late, in part, I suspect, because of the different sorts of attention the two of us receive.  She says that it is not important, that she's simply counting the days until we can be ourselves again and not have this awkwardness between us, but how can she not be frustrated?  It is natural for women to compete for partners, and no matter how many times I tell her that I am not her competition, a certain primal part of her brain looks at us and cannot help but resent my attractiveness, causing her to lash out, even if the words she uses do not match the underlying issues.

As a result, we find ourselves drifting apart a bit, and without the other to serve as an anchor, it can be easy to fall into the traps these lives represent.  Though simple quiet is harder to come by now than it was, I am beginning to spend more time outside of the apartments and hotel rooms, whether in the company of Alicia's co-workers or on my own.  Fewer people respect that I simply want to read my book, but when I do want to engage with someone, it is a bit easier to get his or her attention.  She seems to be spending more time with work friends and at the gym.

She occasionally grosses that we feel like roommates rather than lovers or even ersatz mother and daughter, and it is sometimes bizarre to see just how far she'll go in one way or another.  As you might expect, last week was extremely busy for the both of us, as many people traveling for Thanksgiving had both cabin crew and airport staff taking on extra shifts, though the airlines will jump through every hoop they can to avoid overtime.  I crossed the country during the early part of the week before "jumpseating" back to Dallas in the wee hours of the morning so that I could work a morning flight back to the Bay Area, and was exhausted by the time I was climbing the stairs back to the apartment, only to open the door and be assailed by the smells of a full Thanksgiving dinner (admittedly, one where a couple of things were burnt).

I dropped to the couch and undid my shoes.  "Please, 'Mom', tell me that you didn't invite guests!"

"What?  No, this is just for us!  You know, do a family thing, bring some leftovers to work for the next week, get the genuine experience."

I would normally have gone to Alicia's bedroom before disrobing, but I took my blouse off in the living room to make a point.  "Lindsey, do we look like the kind of women who would eat a full Thanksgiving dinner?  Would that be staying in character?"  I don't spend time in the gym like she does, but it seems that being on my feet all day is enough to keep Alicia's waist slim, even without her bust and hips for comparison.

She snapped at me, completely unreasonably.  "Maybe I wanted to do it for us - no, for me!  I spend a bunch of time doing all the woman's work despite you having a set of tits as well, so maybe I'd like to do a mom thing that gives me a sense of accomplishment!  It's not like I'll have another chance once we turn back!"

"You yourself said it would be irresponsible to become a father at my age."

"Maybe, but..."  A pot on the stove-top started whistling, and she turned her attention to that. 

I sighed.  Lindsey had gotten this idea in her head, and even if there was any stopping her, she had clearly spent the morning cooking, so I went into Alicia's room and found something suitably autumnal to put on after a quick shower, despite needing to sleep after the morning's long journey, and despite not seeing much to truly be thankful for in our current situation.

As expected, she cooked too much, but there has at least been plenty to pick at for the last few days.  I must admit, though, that I am dreading what both she and our employers have planned for Christmas.

-Harmon Keller

Lindsey/Magda: Where's It Get Weird?

I'm used to people saying my love life is weird, what with Harmon being more than twice my age and all, at least until we went to the Inn and now I'm not just physically older, but he's biologically my daughter, which makes things weirder.  Or actually weird, if you consider that women have been pairing off with older men forever, whether you see it as guys with power and authority claiming the young and pretty ones for themselves or it being a biological or cultural imperative that comes from women of childbearing age pairing with proven survivors, so it's the current fad for matching ages that's weird (yeah, I've had some practice with this).  I've gotten pretty used to shrugging that sort of thing off.

Still, sometimes this situation gives me some idea of what other people may have thought when they liked at us.  Like, the other morning, I get a text from the real Magda.  "Hey," she types, "is it weird that I think there's a spark between me and Davy?"

In case you've forgotten, the real Alicia and Magda became Carly and Belinda, sisters who run a cupcake shop in Austin, TX, and they took to it pretty well; they maybe weren't quite the Gilmore Girls before the switch, but Magda was closer in age to Alicia than a lot of other moms, the divorce left them united against the husband & father who abandoned them rather than blaming each other, and...  Well, I don't know.  The point is, becoming sisters want a huge change in their dynamic.  The day-to-day of running a small business was a challenge for them, though, so the original sisters, now both guys, wound up coming down to help out.

"Nah," I replied, "it's only natural to feel a connection with the person who had your shape or vice versa."

"Sure, but Davy used to be Carly."

I literally recoiled from the phone at that, like, leaned back with a big "no!" on my face.  Fortunately, we weren't using video or anything, and I took a while to text back "depends if it's a vibe coming from you or 'him'..."   She dropped it, and hadn't mentioned it since.

I kind of can't blame her for looking, though; we're all only human.  Still,  I could probably handle my boyfriend being kind of both here and not here if it weren't for the fact that Magda's kind of popular, making it clear that I've got options.  Not quite "every head turns when she walks into a room" or multiple guys idly wondering what she's doing tonight popular, but if I hang out with people after work, I've got some attention, and I get asked for my number a lot.  Not like Harmon does, of course, but more than I expected at first, and more than I did in my real life, even though I was in my mid-twenties, blonde, and not in bad shape.  Of course, I was often kind of focused on studies or some other task, and Magda's job is about being open and helpful.  Combine that with the sheer number of middle-aged or older guys who go through an airport on a day, and even if the native silver-fox population is folks like pilots and air traffic controllers who expect the likes of Magda to show interest in them first, there's a lot of guys (including a really unnerving amount of married guys), and not a few women who might like a night out with her.

So she's used to that, and I'm getting hit with a lot of it, and folks are starting to notice me saying no or making excuses, including Magda, who at least doesn't seem upset that I'm not getting that far into character, though she reserves the right to give me hell for the rest of my life if she gets back and everyone starts treating her like being a nun is what everyone thinks she aspires to.  I don't deliberately play it coy, like I might have a secret boyfriend I'm not yet ready to tell people about, but people take it that way.  Magda goes through men, and if I'm not doing it obviously, then I must be doing it secretly.

Sadly, the closest thing I've got to men in my life right now, aside from Harmon, are the trainers at the gym.  That was a suggestion from Magda; as she points out, the only way someone her age has the figure I inherited is magic (ha ha) or hard work, and if I was feeling fatigued at times, it might be a matter of me getting her body when she was just coming off lolling around on the beach for vacation and then having me not pick things up.  She figured I probably want eating very well, either, not knowing the regimen that works for her body and probably grabbing a lot of junk food in the food court or corner store when I had a minute.  Guilty as charged. 

So I've been eating a little different and spending a fair chunk of time in the gym lately.  The first trip was the worst - I had the treadmill going way too fast, and what was probably a good workout for skinny 25-year-old me had curvy 45-year-old me really sore, really fast.  I dialed it back the next time, and raised a few eyebrows when I started switching things around - I like the rowing machines a lot more than the treadmills, both because I did a semester of crew in school and because it works the upper body a bit more than just running.  Magda never really tried it, kind of thinking of rowing as a sort of snobby thing, but I'm starting to feel better, much less worn-out when don't things like hauling laundry or running from one gate to another on some errand.

And, I must admit, I'm starting to feel a bit differently about the wardrobe she left me.  A month ago, I talked about shoving all the manhunter stuff aside, but feeling a little better about the shape of my body had me getting some out and trying it on while Harmon was away for work the other day.  It's not really me, but neither is the face in the mirror, and it's certainly fun to think about just going out to get what you want, rather than fretting over whether you're showing too much, worrying you can't pull something off, or just hoping the right guy would come to you.  So far, the only time someone has seen me wearing one of them was last night, when I figured that something clingy with a cape added would make for a good sorceress costume to wear while handing out candy (aside - I kind of can't wait to see pictures of Harmon working in a Halloween costume when one of his coworkers puts on social media).

I almost want to get all dressed up to go out and shoot down the guys who figure they're doing a woman in her forties a favor by hitting on her, just to kind of feel that sort of power and confidence.  It can be hard to recognize when you've had so much taken by something competent out of your control, but it can feel pretty fantastic.

-Lindsey/Magda

Harmon Keller/Alicia Polawski: Remind Me to Take Alicia's Birthday Off!

There has still been no progress in getting Alicia to tell me where she has stored her recording of this football player and her having intercourse, and the fact that the man in the tape (whose identity Alicia sees no need to keep secret from me) is having a good season so far is only placing me in a worse position, as one of my co-workers who listens to sport-talk-radio still says that the callers on those programs are already asking why he has not been extended.  One or two may have looked at me and made comments that implied I would know something about his conditioning, and while Alicia claims to have kept this encounter secret from everybody at work, and that even her mother knew nothing until the changes wrought by the Inn forced her hand, I would not be the last bit surprised if she had the door of reputation that made allowed such rumors to arise spontaneously.

Despite that part of her reputation, it is clear that Alicia is no fool.  The player's early success has allowed her to increase her demands as the team's interest in re-signing him grows, and whether by her doing or by her mother's, the bakery they found themselves running has remained successful enough that they could, in theory, walk away from these lives without fear.  I do not believe that they wish to, but simply leaving the threat in the air gives them more leverage over Jeremy/Arthur and, by extension, the team.  It also further updates him, leading to a recent message pointing out that I am not simply a go-between, that he can make trouble for me in both this life and my true life.

Truly, though, there is relatively I can do to convince either of them, leaving me with little option but to deliver their messages and do Alicia's job with as little incident as possible, lest she decide that file is something for me to deal with while the Inn is shuttered.  It is boring and menial, and surrounds me with air travelers - who are either as dismayed by having to spend several hours on a plane as I am or annoyingly excited by the novelty of it - and the type of person who actually wants this job.  That sort of person is friendly enough, I suppose, but rather more gregarious than I am looking for.

It would have been better, perhaps, if Lindsey and I had slept on opposite sides of the bed and this had our fates reversed; not only would I complain far less than she about relatively minor ravages of age,  but she would probably be more willing to deal with these people.  Indeed, she already seems to be on fairly good terms with much of the airport staff and asks me who I'm working with on any given flight.  I don't give it much thought, although I have mostly been with the same four-person group during October after the utter randomness of September, although we are still being told to come into the airport on a few hours' notice (something else that might have made Alicia's life more suitable for Lindsey; as invigorating as young people can be, they do not appreciate the set schedule the way an older person does).

What all of this means is that, while I said something noncommittal after we had finished our work on a flight to New York when one of Alicia's co-workers mentioned that it was another's birthday, so we should maybe meet in the hotel lobby at 9 o'clock to take her out for drinks.  I have no intention of actually doing so - thus far, nobody has seemed to find it amiss if I say that I feel asleep as soon as I took a moment to sit on the bed - but when I reach my room and open my bag, I see that Lindsey has not included the usual casual wear for my off-hours, but a decidedly non-casual dress with the accompanying panties and footwear.  She has also included a note saying that avoiding to Alicia, Magda, and everyone else she talked to, it's customary to take your co-worker out drinking if they're away from home, so go out, hit the Big Apple, and take lots of pictures.

My first thought is that this is some sort of payback for her feeling I did not do enough on her "Date Night", though she seemed to have learned from that experience and kept subsequent evenings out more casual.  It turns out to be less pettiness than excessive initiative; she saw the photographs Alicia has posted on her social media accounts (both before and after her visit to the Trading Post Inn) and decided, given the seeming precarious nature of my situation with Alicia and Jeremy, that I should attempt to replicate them as best possible, and did this without consulting me because she knew I would have put my foot down, meaning there is probably some sort of message being sent about relying on "mother" for this sort of thing as well.

Unfortunately for me, she's probably right about how I should make a bit more effort to at least go through the motions of socializing with Alicia's co-workers in this way, so rather than just reading the book I have loaded onto the tablet, I cleaned myself up from what an air-sick infant did and got myself into the outfit Lindsey sent.

I'm certain some younger contributors to this weblog have already described the sensation of their first time in "thong" panties after a lifetime of far more modest shorts or the torture device known as an underwire bra - necessitated because, while the dress is certainly contoured to follow these damnable curves, it offers no support for them.  And while it initially seemed very modest below the waist, it actually tapers inward after swelling a bit to accommodate Alicia's behind, meaning that I could only walk because it was slit practically high enough to reveal those skimpy panties.  Not only did this mean shaving my legs because, as mentioned, my pantyhose was in serious need of laundering, but the dress actually dragged on the floor because the shoes Lindsey packed did not provide the necessary lift (she probably should have found a slightly shorter dress if she felt these were the tallest heels I could navigate).

It was peculiar to look myself in the mirror at that point.  I cannot be a stranger to my new face and body at this point, and I've come to grudgingly accept that certain bits of feminine maintenance are necessary to avoid making waves given that Alicia saddled me with a public-facing service-industry job, but getting ready for a day at work is something I tend to do in a detached manner, just as I do my best to take minimal liberties when washing.  I am to look somewhat anonymous most days, aiming to look as though I am not out of place rather than attractive, and as a result, what I saw in the mirror looked and felt unfamiliar:  Bare shoulders and round breasts peeking out the top of fabric that seemed dangerously low and cut to reveal more cleavage without making it look like I had something attached to my chest with adhesive.  It highlighted Alicia's long neck, how pale her skin is compared to her jet-black hair, which blended into the dress.  I could scarcely reconcile it as being me, especially once I put on the red lipstick that I found in the handbag Lindsey had included.

By the time I had done all of this, it was almost time to meet the others in the lobby, although I would first need to stare down a teenager who took the elevator with me and insisted on peering down my decollatage despite his being a good foot taller than Alicia.  I must admit, it was a trifle amusing when the elevator's bell rang and he whipped his head up and pivoted so as not to look like a little lech to his parents waiting in the lobby when the does opened.

I did not see my party immediately, though I was able to find them quick enough at the hotel bar.  I strode to them confidently, putting the sight I must have been with my leg left slipping in and out of the dress and my hips swiveling as the outfit and shoes made me put one foot directly in front of the other, halfway changing direction with every step.  Elgin, who seemed to have already found a man to keep him company at the bar, seemed to notice first, tapping the crew chief on the shoulder and shooting "hey, guys, it looks like 'All-In Alicia' is back!" just a little too loud.

The birthday girl, clad in a red dress as short as mine was long and featuring a plunging neckline, let out a whoop, while our crew chief silently raised her white wine.  I immediately had a pink, sugary drink - Alicia's usual, apparently - placed in my hand, and did my level best not to make a face as I took a sip of the horrid thing.  The younger girl leaned in and said that someday, I'd have to tell her just what "I" did with a passenger to get a month-and-a-half secret suspension that nobody at work could figure out.  I told her she would not believe me if I told her, and she laughed like it was a far more scandalous double-entendre than was the case.

I had thought that perhaps we might simply run up a tab at the hotel bar, but Elgin's new friend had some other friends who were in a band playing in a bar in Brooklyn, so we piled into a van and made our way there in a ride-share van to listen to some millennials play guitar in a way that was apparently amusing because it appropriated the "plots" of video games released before they were born.  It was a two-bourbon show, and only because the bar got crowded and the rest of the group raised an eyebrow at me staying there - Alicia, apparently, dances. 

I do not, but as with many things, a young woman with Alicia's figure doesn't need to do a whole lot to attract attention; just rock back and forth a bit and men will position themselves nearby to see if you will do more.  Thankfully, the young men at this venue would have died alone in earlier decades, unwilling to show any real initiative where a potential mate was concerned.  It was easy to walk away from them.

The guest of honor apparently felt the same way, because once the set was done, we were in a taxi headed to a spot in Manhattan, which is apparently very popular among professional travelers, whether they work for the airlines or simply use them regularly.  I cannot fault them; the place made an excellent martini and, if an expensive one.  Sadly, I only had the chance to enjoy one or two before we moved to the next place.

There, not only were tequila shots the order of the night, but they seemed to come in random succession, with someone just yelling "shots!" in the middle of whatever conversation we were having and then a new set being shoved at us to be downed immediately.  It is here that the crowd truly becomes beyond annoying - as much as I know that sort of outfit is certain to draw a man's more tactile attention, one does get a bit sore, both physically and emotionally, after one has lost count of how often one's bosom and posterior has been squeezed over the course of a single night.  Worse, at around one in the morning, I had the horrifying thought that, while most of the time my own wealth of experience and strength of character was easily able to prevent any changes in biology that the Inn had effected on my endocrine system and even my very brain, this sort of mind over matter might become diminished with enough alcohol.  It was as good an excuse as any to stop ordering drinks and start making my way back to the airlift hotel, although one man seemed quite indignant that I would not be open to him buying me a drink, and had a few friends to help him press his case.  Fortunately, I was able to extricate myself with the assistance of Alicia's supervisor, the others in our party having already left for their one-night-stands without so much as a goodbye, and we made our way back to the hotel in a cab.

I must at least admit that it was a bit of a surprise how resilient a youthful body can be - though I was lying atop my bed's covers with only my scant panties on, my dress, bra, and both shoes each in a different corner of the room where I can only surmise they were justifiably thrown after I liberated myself from them, I was almost unbelievably alert when the ringing of Alicia's mobile phone awakened me with a reminder from her co-worker that I had to be on a plane in forty-five minutes. 

The flight back west was far from the smoothest since I have been forced to do Alicia's job - we all had to make certain allowances for the one who could not properly pace herself on her birthday - and I was very glad to have the next day off.  Lindsey got a well-deserved earful about placing me in situations like that, even if it did give me a temporary respite from Alicia complaining that I was making her look "boring".

-Harmon Keller

Lindsey/Magda: Date Night

I wouldn't necessarily say that I've been having fun acting the part of Harmon's mother over the past couple months - in a lot of ways, it's been as much a thing I fall into trying to keep him occupied and active and doing something other than indulging in self-pity as it is a thing I think is amusing or a necessary part of keeping up appearances for the real Magda & Alicia as well as anybody else who has a vested interest - but I do it because even if these lives aren't really ours, they kind of are, and they've got to be lived.  If that makes any sense.  I mean, basically, you've got two or people who are biologically mother and daughter living under one roof, working jobs where people know us as that, and we sort of fall into situations where we've got to do what mothers and daughters do.

And it makes feel kind of exhausted at times.  Magda left her form (for lack of a better way to describe the physicality transferred from one body to another by the Inn) in pretty good shape, but I'm still getting used to what I can and cannot do as her, and the thing that keeps really frustrating me is laundry.  I am sweaty and achy by the time I've pulled what I took to the laundromat or dry-cleaner back up to the apartment, and it sometimes doesn't help when I see Harmon lounging in the living room in Alicia's sweats, watching CNN and also reading some magazine, apparently having got up at the crack of 6pm (to be fair, he had arrived back here after a red-eye the night before).  "Hey, lazybones, Mom's done the laundry!"

"No matter how many times you act like you're my mother, it is not amusing."

"C'mon, it's a little bit funny.  Besides, you could cut it down by occasionally doing some chores around here."

He sniffed and went back to his paper.

"Or..."  I took a breath, trying to think of a way for what I was about to say not to sound gross, "we could actually do something as a couple.  We haven't had a date night since the Inn."

He gave me a look.  "Are you serious?  Not only are we both women at the moment, but even if we were interested in being intimate, the roles we have been thrust into would make acting on such attraction... questionable, to say the least."

"I'm not asking for us to wind up in bed at the end of it!  I just think that, you know, taking a night and dressing up, getting dinner and drinks, seeing a play or a movie, maybe just walking around and exploring a little, I don't know, maybe we won't just feel like roommates with nothing in common but what the Inn did to us."

I think it can be hard for us to really see each other like this sometimes, but I did feel like Harmon did see me then.  "Of course, you're right.  We've each been so occupied by being 'her' or being 'them' that we could do with taking a night to be us.  I have to work tomorrow and won't be getting back until nine, but how is Thursday for you?"

I tell him Thursday's great - there's stuff going on but we won't be surrounded by couples or singles, making it really awkward.  It certainly gives me a little more to look forward to during the week, and I suspect folks at work notice, and if they're thinking "Magda" had a date with a guy, well, they're not entirely wrong.  There's music coming from Harmon's room when I arrive home, take a quick shower, put my hair in curlers, and pull open Magda's closet.

There's a lot of choices in there, but pushing the manhunter stuff to one side cuts the options down a bit.  I find a nice, loose floral-print skirt that goes down to my ankles, a cashmere sweater that shows I've got a figure without necessarily drawing everyone's eyes to my boobs, and some wedges that give me an extra inch or two but aren't super-fancy or gait-changing.  A little make-up, and I look pretty good for a gal in her mid-forties, but not on the prowl. 

I sit out in the living room for a bit, waiting, and then go knock on Harmon's door.  "Hey, Harmon, our reservation's in about a half hour."

"Oh, right.  One moment."  It's barely even that long before he opens the door and steps out, stopping midway as he sees me.  "You... look nice."

"Thanks!  And you, well, you look nice in anything."

I probably sounded more disappointed than I was, but I'm pretty sure I said "dress up" when describing the idea, and he's wearing loose slacks that still kind of cling to the tush and a camisole, with his hair in a ponytail.  I suppose I should be grateful that he's come around on camis in the last few days because he won't wear t-shirts on their own and doesn't like anything that feels like it pushes his boobs in or up, which is a lot of Alicia's blouses and tops.

He sighed, frustrated.  "Do I have to go change?"

I sighed too.  "No time; maybe just grab a cardigan or something."

He grabbed the most shapeless one in Alicia's closet and we headed downstairs.  Our table wasn't quite ready when we got to the restaurant, so we accepted the invitation to sit at the bar.  We got our usuals, which didn't look strange for me but it activated some sort of beacon in nearby guys.  After the second or third "so you're a bourbon girl" that he had trouble deflecting, he got increasingly angry about the need.  I probably could have stepped in better or faster, but I felt weirdly outside for a moment the first time because he only saw the apparently-young girl, and even after I started talking, I was winging it because my mom and I are not close and I really don't know what to say when a mother stands up for her daughter.  Eventually, I got to the point where I could just say, hey, mother-daughter night, but Harmon kind of bristled at that, too.

The dinner itself was good, and not as tricky as it might have been; Harmon's not really a big "give me a whole steak and extra carbs" sort of guy under normal circumstances.  He didn't really want to talk about work, which I kind of get, although given that he's had a few layovers that weren't just "sleep at the hotel and get on another plane", I figured he must have had some cool experiences.  It was even harder than usual to get him to talk about his academic work, saying that while the substitute Harmon was apparently capable of giving a lecture but relied on his grad students even more than he did and it was hard to do a lot of the research his new paper needed without access to certain academic libraries, and it was hard to get through the whole process with an intermediary.

He didn't seem too terribly interested in me talking about how substitute-me seemed to be having fun - she and substitute-Harmon are actually married in their real life, so they can take the side-eye we get and have fun with it, although I'm not sure what I'm going to do with everyone thinking I've got artistic hobbies now.  Maybe I should take up painting so that is not quite so strange a change next year, especially since it would give me a hobby for when he was out of town.

After dinner, we saw the movie about the English guys assigned the job of handling India's transition to full independence because he was NOT doing the Reese Witherspoon one.  It was okay, not really my thing, but it was kind of nice to reach out and have Harmon hold my hand in the dark.

It got uncomfortable again on the way home - the guys in the bar and a couple of folks at the theater had Harmon wanting a car rather than a crowded subway only to find out that there's little worse than skeevy Uber drivers - so I don't know if we'll get a chance to do it again soon.  When it comes to living these new lives, Harmon is much less gung-ho on the idea that practice makes perfect than I am.

-Lindsey/Magda

Harmon Keller/Alicia Polawski: The Stewardess's Life

Now that I have been living the life of Alicia Polawski for roughly a month and working at her job for a little more than half that, I can no longer say that every day brings a new indignity in a literal sense; most of them have revealed themselves and it is only a matter of how often they repeat.  That the bleeding will not return for several more weeks makes me grateful, but that it will reoccur at all is maddening.

As much as the physical changes on their own are more than a person should be required to endure - and though Lindsey occasionally reminds me that this event has left me younger and more spry, that seems like a minor compensation for not seeing one's own face in the mirror - it is in some ways the lack of a routine that can be most disruptive.  While Lindsey has a relatively set schedule, Alicia's lack of seniority and the disruption caused by the "leave of absence" means I am left with a schedule that is mostly "on call" days, meaning I can be called upon to fly just about anywhere in the United States almost immediately, with the barest time to prepare myself for presenting the sort of Alicia Polawski the outside world expects to see.

There is, I suppose, a sort of logic to Lindsey's suggestion that I spend the free time I have practicing the feminine arts, as not only is she seldom present when I am must make my self presentable as a young woman in the service industry, but her amusement at situations where she may act maternal toward me is rather difficult to swallow.  There is, I admit, an obvious irony to our situation, but she does occasionally mine it for the very simplest of jokes.

Still, even those are preferable to actually performing Alicia's duties.  It is, firstly, unnerving to have people recognize me as Miss Polawski and strike up conversations that pick up upon some point made months ago.  Though it is in some ways convenient to know that, no matter how differently one may act than the person one might appear to be, there will not come a moment where some other person becomes truly suspicious or distrustful, there must be a constant threat to one's own identity in living another's life.  Should I open up to anybody but Lindsey, I would not be believed, and perhaps that other person would make an argument that my true life is a delusion.  Next to that possibility, the idea that taking birth control and putting on a brassiere every morning might become second nature is almost quaint.

Not that I find it likely that I will be opening up about my situation to anybody aside from Lindsey in the foreseeable future.  The other flight attendants are, I suppose, tolerable enough; though some have occasionally made homes about Alicia finding men no matter where she goes, none seem to have made the connection with her month-long absence.  Most seem to enjoy the work, looking forward to when they can choose their "lines" and trading stories about the place's they visited on their last trips or how great it was to have a whole weekend with their boyfriends (and even the men seem to have boyfriends).  Lindsey would probably get along well with them, but I find myself unable to relate to this group, much less spend time with them on layovers, where I generally stay in my hotel room, trying to keep up to date in my actual field.

This, at least, is better than the actual work, which had its ridiculous moments (honestly, who decides to apply for a new credit card during a plane's descent for the chance to have those miles applied?), but does at least give me some level of respect for the people who do this job that I may not have noticed before.  I have never been afraid of flying, but I do admit to having found myself nervous during takeoff and landing, and there is no room for that in this job.  It's also the case that what little downtime you get us during turbulence, so it is difficult to actually relax.

And the people!  When I can detach myself from the immediate incident, it is interesting how the improper behaviors in first class and economy differ.  The people in economy, I'm finding, generally have issues with each other, and mainly yell at me and the rest of the flight crew for how they perceive I am taking someone else's side.  In some ways, it is fascinating to see how they have mostly been trained to accept a decidedly non-ideal situation and accept whatever someone in authority says, while those in business class, who are far more comfortable, not only complain if service is something less than instantaneous, but are far more likely to find reason to touch me while making their points.  It was a bit of a shock, at first, although I warrant it is to be expected with the uniforms Alicia left for me to wear.  The number of phone numbers and hotel addresses is not exactly shocking, given the same situation.

There certainly have also been a number of people in coach who I suspect wait for me to be walking down an aisle before squeezing past me with an erection on the way to the restroom (and do not get me started on cleaning one of those mid-flight!), and people in the front of the plane who expect me too mediate their ridiculous disputes, but so far, this is how it has worked out.  It is unpleasant enough that I often entertain the fantasy, when a flight takes me toward the East Coast, of boarding a train and heading to Maine, although it would be the mark of a cad to abandon Lindsey in this situation, especially since, if I understand how the "curse" iterates, there would simply be nobody in the identity of Alicia Polawski until the Inn reopens in the spring, and who knows what sort of chaos the true Alicia would cause should that happen?

And I have no doubt she would.  Though other former guests of the Trading Post Inn seem to have formed tight bonds with those with whom they share lives, that has not been the case for me.  The man taking my place seems a decent enough person, willing to make sure that the work I do is forwarded properly, but has already broken several of my long-standing routines and spent more of my salary than is reasonable on hockey tickets and ephemera, and as for the actual Alicia Polawski, she and her mother have become sisters with some sort of hipster cupcake shop in Texas, and she has this far been recalcitrant to give me any details that would let me resolve the sex tape mess.  She even tried to lecture me on not having anything to negotiate with if she gave it up, like I needed some girl barely out of her teens to explain leverage to me!  She apparently still thinks she will get some sort of benefit from this rather than simply antagonizing a potential adversary.

She is also fairly insistent about my maintaining this career, alas, so I must prepare for a trip to Chicago, and from there to Detroit, before making my way back in the other direction. 

-Harmon Keller

Lindsey/Magda: Home & Work

Is it bad that I acted the doting mother fusing over sending her daughter to work tonight?  I kind of feel like having a sense of humor about this is the only way we're going to get through the next year with our sanity, but Harmon is not ready to joke yet, and just gets miffed when I say he should enjoy the experience of being young and sexy and paid to travel.  He didn't spend his life building a reputation in an intellectual and academic field, he says, to be a glorified waitress!  Like I'm eager to have a year of my twenties replaced by someone else's forties, and if he's a waitress, what's that make me at the ticket counter?

Well, it makes me half of what seems like a really admirably close mother-daughter pair.  Alicia never moved out of Magda's apartment, and why would she?  It's not in a bad neighborhood, the train to work is nearby, and if she's going to be away for days at a time, she's probably better off having a roommate who will actually be around, so why not Mom, who doesn't seem to be charging rent if what I can tell from Magda's checkbook is correct.  Especially since, looking at the photos on the fridge and their media accounts, they seem to do a lot together.  Heck, when this Jeremy/Arthur guy offered Alicia a free vacation to reconsider thnings, she took her mom.  Not that I'm approving of the blackmail part of it, and I wonder how much of Alicia's willingness to do that comes from Magda (and whether she was just between boyfriends), but that's kind of cool.

From what I can tell from the people I've met at work, Magda has worked one job or another at the airport for twenty years, never really getting promoted when she was younger because it took he years to really master English while raising Alicia alone, and the when Alicia was older and Magda's English improved, there was always someone younger and more career-oriented - although, on the other hand, everyone knowing Alicia from times Magda couldn't find a babysitter or just showing up to bug Mom at work made things easier when she applied for a flight attendant job.  Working there probably kept Magda in this fairly small apartment for a longer than she should have been, but folks seem to like and respect her, too.  It's kind of nice to have that working for me as I parachute into her life; they actually seem to have been worried something happened to her and Alicia.  I have been telling them that we/they were comically stranded on an island in Casco Bay with just our/their bikinis and a cooler of bottled water and beef jerky, even though Magda made sure to email an apologetic request for more vacation time and Alicia was on a leave of absence in real life.

(Surprisingly enough, when I tell that story, the reaction isn't entirely people imagining Alicia, even when you take the middle-age-and-up pilots out of the sample; I'm apparently more of a MILF than I thought.  I'm still not entirely sure that's a warranted reaction, but seeing the necklines on some of the dresses in Magda's closet, it's something she works!)

I actually had to get back to work the day after we arrived, which was a little harder than it had to be, since we took a cab to the apartment from the airlift rather than trying to learn the trains and buses that first night.  Not a bad idea - it dropped us off directly in front of our new building rather than making us figure out the last few blocks ourselves - although I kind of think Harmon was afraid of being surrounded by all those people.  I had to get my phone out of Polish mode before getting directions, which worried me a bit, but so far I haven't had anyone expecting me to speak Polish.  Then it got a bit confusing because Magda tried to be specific in telling me what to do, but when done something for years you forget what's not common knowledge for a new person, like where the employee entrance is, so I had to find that.  Apparently Magda wasn't one to come to work in her uniform either, although I did bring other stuff to change into at the end of the day if I didn't want to go straight home.

Harmon, meanwhile, saw what his inherited job was and initially said no way, although he didn't exactly start looking for other work someone would think Alicia was qualified for, but just stayed in her room reading, maybe working on a paper that whoever got his life would present at a conference in December.  At least, until he got that letter from Jeremy/Arthur, found out about Alicia trying to blackmail some football player, and got all those nifty threats and inducements.  Then he was making an appointment with her boss at the airline and getting reinstated after "dealing with a family issue", but the good news/bad news situation is that Harmon's first month's work is basically going to be being on-call 24/7 because everybody else got to choose their routes already and Alicia isn't terribly senior to start with.

I didn't find out he'd gotten a call until I got back to the apartment and heard him groaning and complaining in the bathroom, where he was trying to brush out the hair that he'd allowed to get tangled over the past few days because it hasn't quite sunken in that some things require a little time that he previously didn't spend on looking nice, even if you're staying in today.  It didn't help that he'd probably never had long hair before, either, so I told him to take a quick shower, use conditioner, and really work it all the way down to the tips rather than just working out into his scalp.  He just stood there for a moment until I said something about checking Alicia's uniforms.  Fortunately, there were two hanging in the closet, and they didn't look like they needed ironing, although I could see right away that Harmon was going to grumble.

I started to brush his hair - I really kind of envy how fine and flowing it is with just a little attention - but then gave him the brush when I saw his feet.  I asked if he'd mind sitting down and then stretched one of those long legs out to my lap after fishing some nail clippers out of the medicine cabinet and sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

"Why are you...?"

"Because you're about to put on a skirt, which means panty hose, and those toenails will rip the shit out of them."

He tried to jerk his foot away but I held on.  "I can just wear the pants."

"There are two clean uniforms in the closet, and one of them has a skirt.  Would you have thought of this if you're working on the flight back?"

He gave a sniff.  "Obviously."  But he also relaxed his leg.  I pondered telling him he really should shave them, too, but decided to save that for when he got back.

By the time I finished his nails, the hair was mostly okay and just wet, so I took a blow-dryer to it.  I handed him the least-lacy black bra and panties I had found in Alicia's dresser.  He made a hand motion as if to shoo me away but I told him that I'd seen everything he used to have and Alicia's mother/housemate could probably be expected to know what her daughter looked like.  He still turned around before dropping his towel.  I will admit to squeezing my own cheek and sighing as I saw his.

Next was hair and makeup.  He grumbled, but I said he should at least learn how to use a couple clips or pins to keep that name out of his face rather than constantly trying to tuck it behind his ear, and while he's got good skin and Alicia seemed to make the pale Eastern-European thing work in her photos, a little mascara and lipstick wouldn't be a bad thing.  He recoiled a bit at the eye-shadow, and I'd bet money that he wouldn't wear it on the flight back, and I don't blame him too much; touching even your closed eye is weird the first time and is hard to learn that watching it done to you, and we didn't have time for me to demonstrate on myself.

He predictably grumbled about the panty hose and me zipping her skirt up.  No surprise that it, the blouse, and the jacket were all kind if tight; Alicia liked showing off her assets even when everything was covered.  Still, we got it done with time to spare.  I stood with my arms stretched out to his shoulders and felt a weird sense of pride.  "I know you don't want to hear this, but you're kind of gorgeous.  I'm so jealous right now."

"Envious," he said, but I think even he felt kind of good about what he saw in the mirror, at least for a moment before something less passed came over his face.  I dropped some toiletries into a compact bag smaller than the one he'd found in Maine that was clearly Alicia's working suitcase and handed it to him.  "Okay, your other uniform and a set of civilian clothes are in there, asking with your phone's charger and your laptop.  You remember Alicia's instructions for clocking in and out and which airport hotel has your room waiting?"

He looked at me witheringly.  "You don't have to pretend to be my mother when nobody's watching."

"You say that now, but you'll be mad if you don't have clean uniforms when you get home.  Or other clothes for that matter."

Apparently he didn't like the reminder that he had been shirking some of the household chores, rolling his eyes as he left the apartment.  I couldn't really resist leaning out the door and shouting to have fun in New York and make mommy proud, which I say helped because it got him moving down the steps faster and walking to the BART station without hesitating beforehand.

Harmon can mock me for that, but who's got big wet spots on the work clothes she didn't have time to change out of before dealing with someone else's wet hair and nails and a bunch of laundry just dropped on the bathroom floor?  This gal, so I might as well make jokes about it, including how I'm totally doing a middle-aged mom thing by composing this entry with a big ol' glass of wine in my hand.

-Lindsey/Magda

Harmon Keller/Alicia Polawski: Multiple Humiliations

I had not even considered contributing to this "blog" when we were provided with the opportunity upon check-in at the Trading Post Inn, even when Lindsey initially posted that first time about the awkwardness of going on vacation with our age difference.  I doubt I would change anyone's mind in doing so, and over the years I have come to realize that the younger generations' impulse to share too much of what had once been one's personal thoughts is simply something for which one must make allowances.  Even after waking up to find our very bodies changed - perhaps especially then - I saw no reason to broadcast to the wider world.

However, the events of the last week have made it abundantly clear that there are an almost uncountable number of things about my current situation where my knowledge is second-hand at best, and where the community reading this may be able to provide assistance for dealing with these demeaning impossibilities.

Obviously,  having the form of this "Alicia Polawski" is the first.  It is bad enough for a man to suddenly become a woman, but to become such a parody of low-class femininity is absurd.  I by no means object to a woman being attractive, but I have always favored girls like Lindsey, with gentle, elegant figures, a brightness to their cheeks, slender limbs, and features that cannot help but please the eye.  I find myself now with a narrow waist, but the areas above and below are needlessly expansive; were I to have met the original Alicia on the street, I would have felt it likely that at least the bosom had been augmented, and although I cannot feel anything artificial within, I suppose that it is still possible, but that the uncanny nature of that place has substituted flesh for silicone.

Lindsey claims I am exaggerating, and that seeing something where there had been nothing made me think that there was more than there was.  Yes, she said, Alicia was well-endowed, but that I wouldn't have trouble finding things to fit like her last roommate did.  This seems like a very low standard to me, but I suppose that, when I do get myself some more presentable items to wear, I may think differently.  Which lead me to the next issue:  Alicia's taste is abysmal.

Of the things in her small suitcase that one could travel in - half of the contents smelled exactly as you might expect for being dirty laundry that had been stuffed in a bag and left underneath a bed for three weeks of summer dog days - virtually all of it was either tight or covered far less than one might like.  Even wearing the most modest outfit that Lindsey could assemble for me, I looked like a harlot displaying her body to the world as if being gifted with large breasts was any sort of personal accomplishment.

On top of that, she's got tattoos!  I suspect her job would frown upon them being visible, but I have Chinese characters on one ankle and one shoulder blade, and something more elaborate on my lower back, three skulls that effectively form an arrow pointing between my cheeks.  Just a thoroughly impractical and short-sighted decision; even if this "art" being moved to my skin was unpredictable, certainly Alicia could have imagined a time in the future where they would hold her back!

Although, why should she, as her actions would clearly have held her back enough that her tattoos would not make much of a difference.

I was loath to bother charging Alicia's phone for fear of what vapid communications doing so would enable, but Lindsey convinced me that this would be far more trouble than it was worth.  I was not incorrect about that assessment - it seemed to vibrate for a solid half-hour as texts, missed calls, and other social-media notifications came in, and has not exactly stopped since, no matter how thoroughly I ignore them.  Several were from one "Arthur Milligan", a name which meant nothing to me as I deleted three weeks' worth of messages I would not respond to.  Indeed, it only registered with me when Lindsey picked up the mail (Alicia still lives with her mother despite being twenty-three) and rushed to give me an actual letter that had arrived amid the utility bills and advertising.

The letter was not only unusual for its very existence - it was addressed to "Alicia Polawski (whoever she is right now)".  Lindsey initially thought that this Arthur Milligan must be the identity she had inherited, though I thought it odd that she would not have mentioned that in the letter she left with her luggage.  The note inside the envelope was terse, requesting I make an appointment to meet him at the business offices of one of the area's local football teams.  I sent an email to RSVP for the next day, when I allowed Lindsey to fiddle with my hair, makeup, and clothing until I looked something close to respectable before navigating the area's public transportation systems, arriving fifteen minutes before the scheduled meeting.

Milligan ran late himself, though he recognized Alicia immediately upon arriving in the office, telling his receptionist to send me in after he'd had a few minutes to get some coffee going and check to see what emails were on fire.  It was actually twenty more before I was summoned to the office suite with "Vice President Player Relations and Publicity" on the door.  He sat behind a modern desk that appeared to have its computer built into some hidden niche, with just a wireless mouse, keyboard, and flat screen on the work surface.  He smiled, pointing at a chair on the other side.  "So, how do you like being Alicia so far?  I have to say, I'd almost be jealous if I could even conceive of becoming a woman - you're quite the looker!"

His gaze was directed at my chest, as you might expect, but he seemed friendly enough otherwise.  "To tell the truth, Mister Milligan, this being my body not something I would choose."

"Are you sure?  The original seemed to enjoy it!"  With that, he clicked one of his mouse's buttons, and a large flat screen on one if the walls came to life.

I immediately tried to turn away when I saw the video he was playing - it looked like the most base pornography, with a young woman on all fours being taken from behind by a large, muscular, African-American man.  I would have had him turn it off, except that the tattoo on the girl's lower back was the exact same as mine.  As soon as I noticed that, there was a cut, and I had the distinct horror of seeing the face that had recently replaced mine seemingly trying to swallow a massive black member.

Apparently my reaction pleased Milligan, because he was smirking as he stopped the video.  "Yes, the original Alicia liked just about every part of her own body and a man's as well, but I've edited the video because there's no need for you to know which player she's trying to blackmail.  Great guy, really, salt of the Earth, does a lot in the community, his wife helps out with a lot of the charity work, and even if he was dumb enough to mess around, he has at least avoided brain damage to the extent that he knew to bring this to me.

"So let me guess - underneath Alicia's skin, you're male, maybe a little conservative, maybe old enough to blame the times when you grew up if you recoil a bit at a black man with a white woman?"  I wanted to object to the latter part of that description, but was shocked enough that I just nodded.  "Great!  Perfect, really - you aren't going to want this to get out while people think you're Alicia any more than we want it to come out before we let this guy become a free agent next spring.  So we can work together."

He must have noticed my body language changing, tightening up or something, because he laughed.  "Oh, no, nothing like that-- What's your name, your real name?"

"Harmon Keller."

"Great, I'll Google that tonight.  You might as well call me Jeremy, even if nobody else has for ten years.  Anyway, Harmon, like I was saying, although it might be a turn-on for some, girls who used to be older guys aren't really my thing.  No, I just need you to get me the original copy of this video, make sure that Alicia hadn't put anything in the cloud, that sort of thing.  I know, that's going to be tough to verify - making copies is so easy and instant these days that I think blackmail is going to go out of style soon.  Once you know there's pictures or video out there, you might as well just get ahead of it because it will get out, right?

"But short of that, just be a good Alicia.  Go back to her job, don't anger her friends, don't get arrested or knocked up or a disease or anything, maybe make her a little money.  I had to do a lot of fast talking to get her to not release the tape when she realized that the reservation at the Inn wasn't just a chance to think about our counter-offer, but I think she'll play ball knowing that we'll make it easy for her to get her old life back.  Think you can handle that?"

"Young man, I've correctly predicted the economic collapses of entire countries; I think I can handle the life of one unremarkable young woman!"

"That's the spirit!"  He stood and reached a hand out to shake mine, and then pulled me in when I accepted, using his other hand to grope my bottom and push my body into his, pushing my breasts against his chest and his member against my leg.  Then he pushed me back out and looked me up and down.  "Yes sir, I can see how this body might tempt someone.  Too bad about what's inside."

I ignored that for a second, walking to the door, where I turned around and told him that what was inside was the most useful part before walking out and straight to the elevator, ignoring anyone in my path.

Reprehensible man, but I must admit that there is a certain logic to his plan, even if it does involve me passing for Alicia until June.  Especially since the job I'm expected to go back to is working for one of the airlines as a stewardess.

Humiliations, it seems, will never cease.

-Harmon Keller