Jordan/Yuan-wei: Yes, It's Me, In the Sari

I dunno if Annette is going to make a post about the wedding on this blog, but I figure I'll leave all the really touristy, holy-shit-I'm-really-doing-this stuff to her, because as anybody who has seen her Facebook page over the last couple weeks can attest, she is really into doing that right now.  And who can blame her, really?  She's been an Indian-American dude, but only really did stuff that emphasized the "Indian" part of that a few times, plus it's all so foreign to everyone she knows in her "real" life that they more or less demand every second be documented, and she has happily complied.

We planned it so that our flights arrived in Mumbai at about the same time, and then Kareena was there to pick us up.  There was a lot of hugging before Kareena told us that we weren't just attending, but would be part of the bridal party.  "Mummydaddy didn't want that at first, since it's usually just family and closest friends, but I didn't think it was right that either of you should be off in the back, since me and Jor -- that is, Benny -- wouldn't be together without you two, I insisted."  She looked panicked for a second.  "It's that too much?  Maybe you wanted to be anonymous--"

Annette, at least, was down for it.  "Hell, no, just be warned - I am going to be the worst gawking American with her phone out all the time!  How 'bout you, Jordo?"

I have to admit, I had kind of figured it would be like René at my graduation, there but kind of just out of curiosity, but I also know I wasn't going to watch my own wedding without Annette there for moral support, so what the hell else could I do but say yes?  Which meant a quick drive into the city, where Kareena had some pretty specific ideas for what we needed in terms of outfits.

Also, that our plans to fight jet lag and be really fresh for the second days ceremonies were kind of dashed, because now we had to be at the ganesh pooja, and while it was a nice ceremony, it was kind of uncomfortable.  Benny was there, so they weren't conducting it entirely in Hindi, but I think that they would have otherwise just to spite us.  Kareena had been necessity vague about how we fit into her going from a not-quite-arranged marriage to what they see as rushing into things with Ravi's old roommate, so they think maybe one of us slept with him or was rejected and faked evidence of him being gay or something like that.  Since some of have probably been putting some way to get Kareena and Ravi back together for the last couple years, we're not exactly welcome guests to them.

The atmosphere was a little different the next morning as we all got our hands and feet painted at the mehndi ceremony; that was almost all Kareena's girlfriends and they just saw it as romantic, wanting details of how everything went down.  We kept to the story about how "Jordan" used to be a big gamer and "Yuan-wei" was one of the folks he regularly played with, that I met Annette at some college-night thing, we took a trip to New York, and one or the other of us noticed some sort of chemistry between him and Kareena, especially once he started getting into shape.  It's a cover story that sounds like one when Annette and I hear it, but I guess it sounds reasonable to everyone else.

It takes a while and I feel genuinely weird looking at my skin afterward.  The henna patterns look like tattoos and I don't know that I really like that.  I never got one back in my original life, didn't even consider my body my own as Deirdre, and just never saw how injecting ink into my skin was going to make me better-looking since becoming Yuan-wei, especially since I could still  remember Mom & Dad saying that there could come a time when I didn't want one,  and figured that went double for chicks.  I put on makeup and jewelry and sometimes do prosthetics for movies and Halloween and shit, but seeing my body as an artistic medium was weird, even if I'm probably more used to it as malleable than most.

The sangeet was that night, and I nearly had a heart attack when I saw Mom, Dad, Max, and Bingbing arrive and sit down away from me, with Benny.  When I didn't see them, I could kind of put the fact that the Inn cut me off from my family out of mind, but this hit me a lot fucking harder than expected, them traveling to the other side of the world for Benny.  It also removed me that I hadn't just come here out of obligation, and that Benny hadn't agreed to the big Indian wedding to make Kareena happy.  We were trying to get them into a state of mind where we could tell them the truth.

Annette grabbed my hand and was an awesome friend through this, but I didn't get much sleep after, and the next morning, as we all helped Kareena get ready, I really wondered about some stuff for the first time.  She looked so damn beautiful and happy, and I thought about how is always just fucking dismissed her back when she was sort of Ravi's girlfriend, I guess because of the whole arrangement that seemed to drop her in his lap, but I couldn't help going down the what-if path, like, if I'd been in shape, would she have been attracted to me the same way she was to Benny?  Then maybe I never go to the Inn, or I wind up taking Max or something, and, nope, just gross.  And maybe Annette has nobody who can help her out and gets in a real mess as Yuan-wei, or Benny steals Kareena from me...

It'll drive you nuts if you go down that rabbit hole, so I dug out and just got through the wedding.  I haven't really been to a lot, but, man, these Indian ones are colorful and festive compared to Western ones with churches and bland suits - there was horses drums, and fire!  It lasted a while, but it was good for gawking, and then there was the reception with food, music, and so much dancing.

I was a bit creeps out when the first Chinese guy asked me to dance, but he was like a second cousin, and even if we were still blood relations, well, that's not that close, and he was respectful enough when I removed his hand from my ass.  That I hadn't seen any of them for fifteen years made a lot of difference, as did the fact that, by and large, they were kind of a nice break between Kareena's male relatives and friends and neighbors and all.  Don't get me wrong, the Indian dudes are all cool and fun, and I've got no fucking problem with guys seeing me as hot in part because I'm different, but the confidence and directness was a bit much, especially the ones who pushed the conversation to marriage awful quick and then boasted about the size of their parents' house.

Still, I had a lot more fun than I'd ever had at one of these as a guy, to the point that I was still going strong when Annette tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to my parents, who were winding down and making their way to tell Benny and Kareena they were done for the night.  I made my way back to my seat to collect the shoes I had taken off earlier (we were well into the barefoot dancing stage of things) and Annette went to find Max.  We all meet up in the hallway and told them that we had something important to tell them, although Annette and Bingbing stayed behind in the hall when we got to Mom's and Dad's guest room.

Dad asked what this was about, and Benny looked at me.  "Should you start, or should I...?"

"Oh God, they're in some sort of weird poly thing."

I think we all looked a little shocked to hear my mom say that, but Kareena recovered first.  "No!  But, honey, I think you have to start."

Benny nodded, and turned to my parents.  "Okay.  Well, them, here goes.  I'm, uh, I'm not your son.  She is."

I looked at him.  "Oh, that's fucking eloquent.  Real sense of the moment you've got there."

My Dad looked at Benny, then me, then back to Benny.  "I'm afraid I don't get the joke, son, or why you'd do this tonight of all nights."

"It's not a joke, Da-- Mister Chang.  There's this cursed beach house in Maine, and it turns people into the last person to stay there.  I stayed there after Jordan, like, four years ago, and we were going to all change back, but that's how I met Kareena, so we didn't."

"Think back, Dad - didn't we think it was weird that Jordan suddenly started to become easy to get along with and care about his health when he came back from that trip to Maine with Ravi?"

I gave him a look.  "You know, you could have mentioned suddenly no longer speaking Chinese and changing jobs...

"Stop it!"  Mom looked at us.  "This isn't funny, and Kareena, I would not think you would be a part of the boys doing this."

"I wouldn't if it was a joke, Mama Chang, but we kind of have to.  Jordan, the new Jordan, he tried to tell me five times - he hates keeping anything from me - but the curse protects itself even beyond it being hard to believe.  I always thought it was just a metaphor for him trying to change his life until the night he proposed, and I realized he wouldn't risk that moment unless he really meant it.  That's the only time the truth can get into your mind, when your life is already changing.  We were just hoping this was going to be a big change for you, and not just us."

"That's--"  She looked at me.  "Tell me something only my Jordan would know."

"Honey--!"

Mom gave Dad a look, then turned back to me.  "Come on, make me believe this."

So I did, and if I made sure to do it in Cantonese so that Benny and Kareena didn't understand, I'm sure as fuck not putting it on the Internet for anyone to read.

They didn't quite seem to believe us, but Dad was getting angry anyway.  "This doesn't make sense!  You say you could turn back but didn't, and how do you know if this is supposed to be protected?" He looked hard at Max, who stammered that was a while other story.

"It's part of mine.  There are some bad people out there that use the Inn, and Max got caught up."

"So you say.  But even if this is true, why tell us?  Why make us feel like fools?"

"Don't you want to know, Mom?  I mean, okay, things are going to be weird, but the weird things have explanations now!"

"Do they?  Even if this is all true, you said you could have changed back, but you didn't, even after someone else hit the gym for you!  Why didn't you?"

"Benny and Kareena--"

"Bullshit!"  Dad moved his gaze between me and Benny.  "I love my son, but that's not like you.  You could be so selfish!"

That fucking hurt.  "Do you have any idea what it's like to see someone take your life and improve it?  To just watch someone make your body and then make friends and get a great girl and even find a job he doesn't hate and just absolutely know that you're going to fuck it up?  It's goddamn terrifying, and I thought I was going to get into a very different situation instead of this!"

This time Mom was the one looking between us, not sure exactly what she should believe our who she should address.  "I...  I hope you don't think we loved you more just because--"

She started to well up, and I grabbed her hands.  "No!  And even if you did, that would have just meant that you were proud of me.  You couldn't have known!"

Our faces were close, enough for her to see my makeup, or my cleavage if she looked down a little.  "You do understand that is hard to look at you and see my son."

"It's been four years, Mom.  More than enough time to figure out bras and heels and lipstick."

"But I saw you on the dance floor, and you seemed so... enthusiastic.  Does that mean that before, you were--"

"Trans?  I don't think so - I'm hardly the first guy to visit the Inn and eventually be okay with the change to female, like it makes the new you the real you somehow.  But I dunno.  I'm into my appearance more, but I don't know if that means this is more 'right' or I've learned some sort of lesson or I just still like looking at hot chicks and that includes the mirror in the morning.  But the important stuff hadn't changed.  I still love Halloween and Hong Kong movies and the Mets.  I'm good with computers and still like to draw, and now I get to use them together."

I think that's when Mom really started to believe, although Dad needed a little more convincing.  We went through a lot of the last four years, although we didn't fill them in on all the details - I don't know enough about Bingbing's deal to spill and Max won't, and we left out the part about Max getting fucked by Annette. 

I guess it's good that they wanted to know a lot about Jacky and Ernesto - if they still thought I was just some random girl, they wouldn't really care about my (ex) (not really) boyfriends.  Or maybe they would.  On the other hand, they didn't say I should be paying off the student loans that Benny inherited, which I kind of expected.

So, I don't know if I'll be invited to Thanksgiving, or if Benny will be, or what.  But, man, is it a fucking load off.

-Jordo

Annette & Jordan/Yuan-wei: Graduation

Annette:

This probably comes off as a little weird, but since both Jordan and I graduated from college a couple weeks ago, we figured it would make sense to do this as one post together, rather than bore you guys twice.  We were going to do it right after my graduation, but we got really busy - I'm moving in with her for the summer, and that takes some effort, we've both been looking for work, she's got immigration things to figure out...

Jordan:

We really need to get an Inn person into ICE so that we can say "I was born here" and they'll believe you and find a way to make everything work.  Sure, I'm not the sort of person those fuckers target, but who knows whether Americans will freak out about Chinese people by the time they can send me back to Hong Kong for overstaying my student visa in a couple of months.

Worrying about that sort of stuff was part of why I thought about skipping graduation altogether.  I'd done it before and it seemed kind of strange to invite those who remembered back for another one, and it also meant that Chen-ai was going to be there.  We avoid having to pretend to be family these days, but some things can't be skipped without people hitting you with way more pity or suspicion than you want to deal with.

Despite switching up my studies after my first year as Yuan-wei, graduating late or the like was never going to happen.  I didn't get the marks I'd hoped for on "I, Fembot" even though there weren't a whole lot of complaints about technique.  Someone thought it was tacky for me to use those themes and dinged me for that. 

Annette:

If only they knew!

Jordan:

Whatever; all the folks I've shown it to who have been turned from men into women and had to deal with new urges like it, and it gives me something to show prospective employers on Vimeo.  Freaked Harmon out to see the finished product, though.

And Ernesto seemed to think it was pretty decent.  He jokes about the best part being the brain he made and seeing "Alicia" vamp it up after being so prissy off-camera, and kind of doesn't entirely get that he does a lot of the "guys expect too much of women" stuff we're spoofing, but he thinks it's funny anyway and is impressed that I did some coding for some of the effects work.  He wanted me to show it to his family on Saturday night, but his grandmother seemed like she wouldn't be amused by the sex stuff.  On the other hand, not showing them stuff we'd worked on together made them positive that I was his girlfriend.

Annette:

You should be his girlfriend.

Jordan:

Even if I was interested, Chen-ai would destroy him and you know it.  You notice I haven't heard from Jacky at all since dumping him?  You'd think he'd be at least try to win me back rather than just giving up.

Annette:

Apparently not having a penis for four years doesn't get "no means no" to sink into a guy's head.

Jordan:

You're a fuckin' riot.

Anyway, Sunday was the big day.  I got a bunch of texts in the morning, half congratulations and half asking what was going on later.  I didn't get to meet anybody who had come to town for it before heading to the building, dressed a little nicer than I initially planned to.  It was hot and humid enough for cutoffs and a crop-top, but Romain was going to be there, so I did wear a nice dress under my robe.  It would have been nice to send Chen-ai home with pictures of me looking trashy, but Romain deserved better.

Annette:

Is it weird that I've got a crush on Romain and René as a couple?  Like, I want to figure out how they could fit me in?

Jordan:

YES.

Anyway, graduation was, like, pretty much the same as the first time, only longer, and I was doing it in heels this time.  Not a huge deal - I've made stilettos my bitch by now - but not ideal.  Ernesto's folks waved, Chen-ai nodded, and that was that.  I was kind of glad Romain had decided to forego sitting in the audience (even with a couple of seats between him and Chen-ai, it would have been fucking torture for him), even though he'd wanted to be here.

Chen-ai had a list of places where she wanted pictures with "her graduate", so we ran around town for the rest of the afternoon.  I think the only time we really spoke during it was when she decided she wanted a snack at Flour and set out what sort of budget I should adhere to in various cities.  We had the conversation in Mandarin, at her insistence, leading her to say Beijing was out about halfway through.

Annette:

What's the furthest from her you could reasonably go?  New York?  London?

Jordan:

You joke, but...

Annette:

So, did she just fly in for the ceremony and then leave?

Jordan:

If she did, she's got a demonic ability to avoid jet lag.  But, no, I think she arranged some business things, and I figure she wanted to talk with Bingbing at some point.

Annette:

Must have been later in the week, because I was fifth-wheeling it with her & Max & Romain & René until you got to The Changeling, and she didn't even get a text.

Speaking of, how awesome was the cake Ashlyn and Jonah got for us? 

Jordan:

FUCKING INSANE. 

Like, I know Ashlyn likes to doodle and draw, but five or six pictures of us as we were from before we went to the Inn until we're in caps and gowns printed on a lenticular card and put on the top of the cake...

And it was a damn good cake!

Annette:

Plus, the look on Max's face when you mentioned carbs...

Jordan:

The hotness does take more than good genes and yoga to maintain, sadly.  But I guess that's another thing I've learned and gotten better at these past four years, right?  Learning how to handle my body so that, no matter how it's shaped, it looks and feels right and shit.

Annette:

To tell the truth, I'm still not sure what I want to be like that.  Sandra left me kind of skinny and living with a bunch of judgmental sorority sisters after I'd just come off three years of eating like a guy.  Like, that was kind of tough on me, and it really messed me up a lot this year, trying to catch up with low blood sugar all the time because I felt like I'd forgotten how to be a woman and tried to follow their lead.

Jordan:

And yet, you brought your GPA up over your senior year.

Annette:

Not by that much, but I've got to admit, it felt good.  My    was never actually disappointed with how Sandra or I was doing, but when you come back to your original life, you want to do better, make them understand that what they've been seeing wasn't the real you.  And I think that's why all our friends from the Inn who threw us that graduation party did it as a combined thing, because they knew that I'd want the end of the week to be just for me and my mom, even if Max is the only other one I know who's really been able to come full circle like that.

Anyway, I didn't have a hot/humid commencement like you did, and guest tickets were really at a premium, but it was kind of amazing.  I felt really lucky to be graduating from such a top school, kind of pinching myself as we got closer to it.  It's stupid, I know - everyone else in the class has kind of taken going here for granted after four years, and I've experienced literal actual magic three times, with half my friends being part of a secret club that even the most elite legacies here don't know about.

But I did it!  I did it despite strange supernatural forces sending me onto other paths.  I did it despite having to spend my first year doing it from afar, living vicariously through a girlfriend, and then having to catch up.  I don't know if a tag-team post is the right place to say it (feel free to delete this paragraph when I hand you the laptop, Jordo), but there were a lot of times where even though Jordan was the person who understood what things were like for me the most, I really resented her.  Every visit to the Inn made her younger and more attractive and was like a second chance, while mine seemed to take me further from where I wanted to be, making me older and with my options seemingly narrower, and really just a stroke of luck getting me back to my real life and worried I wouldn't fit in it any more.

But I did it.  Even if I don't know what I'm going to do now.

Jordan:

Me neither.  It's kind of fucking terrifying - I don't know what country I'll be living in by the end of summer, and the whole thing with Romain the past few weeks has been goddamn weird.  He wants to be here for me finishing what he started, but he and René don't want to take back their old lives.  But that's an improvement; at least he's willing to talk with me at all now.  I think he's kind of curious what I'll make out of his old life.

Annette:

I think I'm going to wrap it up because I've got a Skype interview early tomorrow, but I want to make sure you say the thing before we hit Publish.

Jordan:

Ugh, does it have to be a fucking announcement?  (She's nodding)  Okay, fine.

I changed my name.  Back, sort of.  When I watched the finished cut of "I, Fembot", it didn't feel right, but it didn't really hit me until later that it didn't feel like mine with "A Missy Lee Film" on it.  I fucking hate being called "Missy" - not even "Melissa", just plain "Missy" - and no offense to Romain, but I can't see putting it on my résumé or in credits for movies and the like.  I can deal with "Lee Yuan-wei", but a lot of folks here want a Western name, and since Jordan can be a girl's name, I decided to reclaim it.  I'll be "Jordan Lee" from now on.  First use of that is on my diploma.

Annette:

And, honest, I think that's a way cooler graduation/commencement thing than just moving a tassel on your hat.

Jordan:

Says the person who's not filling out a bunch of forms.

Annette:

And with that, I'm going to bed.  Wish us luck as we try to figure out what tomorrow is going to bring, but in a perfectly normal way!

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

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: Oops I Did It Again

Okay, "oops" is probably not the right word; to gender-swap one of the more memorable bits from Shane Black's script for The Last Boy Scout, it's not like I was naked in Ernesto's bedroom for no apparent reason only to trip and have my vagina land on his rock-hard dick.  No, it was a mutual decision, one coming from equal parts seeing each other constantly while we worked on each other's short films, deciding we needed to spend a couple hours drinking and arguing after our third time seeing The Last Jedi (he thinks it is perfect despite the casino stuff going on forever and do not mansplain Finn needing to know the real world in order to become a true rebel because I get it and it doesn't make the actual mission less stupid), and me just being sick of my vibrator with a song dash of knowing Chen-ai would never approve of him.  I fucked him because I wanted to and stayed the night because why go outside in this unless you absolutely have to, and there's only one thing that would have dissuaded me.

That, of course, being the knowledge that he had been sleeping with the star of my movie since day three of shooting.

Now, don't get me wrong - I've been enjoying the fuck out of working with Bree.  She's the only woman who really nailed the "not trying to be sexy but every move she makes is boner-inducing" aspect of the main character in the auditions, she's way more comfortable walking around a set in her underwear than I was, and she's genuinely funny.  I thought we were connecting even though, okay, she sometimes acted like she was doing us a favor consenting to work on someone else's movie because she was used to coming up with her own concept and choreography.  And, okay, I'm not paying a whole lot of money, so she can complain a little about it not being her most satisfying experience, I'll magnanimously allow that.  But, like, was being female supposed to give me some sort of sexual ESP so that I know the complete history of everyone that I go to bed with?  That seems unreasonable.

Almost as unreasonable as her fucking walking off the set.

Needless to say, I'm fucking pissed at Ernesto for putting me in this situation, even though there's still a huge part of my brain that also wants to say, yeah, bitches be crazy, and move on like nothing happened.  His comment that I shouldn't worry, because if she'd walked off a day earlier, we'd really be screwed, is annoying despite how accurate it is.

See, somewhere during the writing, I got the idea that the sexbot body our hero had his brain transplanted into wasn't the only one of that model his buddy had lying around, and another one was programmed to act as the nurse, another as the maid, and so on.  Kind of fun, right?  And aside from one scene which I think I can edit around, that's all that was really left - we kind of let Bree play the one character and then would do the others, even if it messed with our shooting schedule a bit, thinking this would get better performances.  So, okay, we just shoot with someone else, and grumble about how it didn't need to be digitally stitched together.

The only problem is, man, this is not a lot of time.  The insane cold of the last couple weeks made everyone late throughout the shoot (and the exterior shots miserable), I've only got the lab set rented until Monday, the costumes are made for Bree and my wardrobe gal is not really available for alterations, even if I found someone similarly curvy at the last minute (and I am burning up the phones and IMs to do so).  Oh, and I'm supposed to have company this weekend, an Inn person I haven't met and who are likely to be all "why are you busting so much ass on something you inherited from Missy?"

Something will come together, I'm sure of it, but, fuck, this has gone from something I feel really confident about to a potential disaster.

-Jordo/"Missy" Yuan-wei

Max: Mystery Girl

I'm not sure what switch flipped in Bingbing III at Jordo's Halloween party, aside from her having a few drinks, but I like it even if it is kind of weird, even by Trading Post Inn standards.

I mean, I should be feeling some sort of horror right now or something - like, even if the Bingbing I knew want who I thought, should I really be cool with her doppelganger being around?  The further I get away from spending those weeks as Elaine, the more they seem kind of unreal, but if I get into that mindset, then it's like somebody scooped my girlfriend's brain out of her head and replaced itwith someone else's, and I'm okay with that because she's still cute.  I don't actually have need to have spent time as a woman to know that's kind of messed up.  Sure, Carlotta Wong was a monster who was just using me and doesn't deserve any sort of loyalty, but what does liking this new Bingbing day about me?

Maybe nothing.  She is, after all, very different.  She doesn't wear make-up, favors t-shirts, jeans, and sneakers, likes video games, and trends to be a lot more in sync with me when we're scrolling through Netflix or Amazon looking for movies to watch.  A lot of times during the first month or so, I kind of wonder why I didn't see a lot of the same things looking at "Deirdre" when that was Jordan's identity.  Bingbing was maybe not quite so angry and defiant as Jordan was, but there's still a lot of "I'm just not going to do this", right down to not putting a bra on until the day she got caught in a thunderstorm and wound up calling me from a stall in a ladies' room so I could bring her some dry clothes.  Her first period was a pretty big freak-out, too.

Still, it built some trust.  One thing I forgot to mention in some of the other times I wrote here is that while Jordan and I tend to think she's someone Chen-ai is using to keep an eye on us, she seems to think it's the other way around - that Yang Chen-ai turned her into a girl, and we're supposed to report back on her.  There's a weird sort of logic to that, I suppose, if it's not something she's saying to throw us off the path.

That could also be what suddenly dragging me into Jordan's spare room and kissing me was about, but it's a pretty crazy play for a former guy.  She kind of avoided me for about a week afterward, as much as she could when we're sharing a bed, but then the weekend came, some friends had Knocks tickets, and we kind of got invited as a couple.  Bingbing thought it would be fun, so I said yes.  We're riding the escalator up to out seats in the garden when she makes a little motion to switch places because she's a foot shorter than I am.  I say sure, but she's the one who has to kind of squeeze past my buddy and his girlfriend, who are using the opportunity to lock lips.

"New couple?" Bingbing asks in Cantonese.

"Yep.  Still really into that."  I try and smile in a way that says "not really mocking", and then she smiles back before leaving forward and kissing me on the lips.  "What's that for?"

"Well, aren't we a new couple too?"

"Are we?  I thought you were just kind of drink at Yuan-wei's party and regretting it."  I tend to use Jordan's new Chinese name with Bingbing; it flows better in Cantonese and is what she uses.

"I was, kind of, a little, but...  I know it's not fair to tell you so little about the real me, but I'm kind of unexpectedly single right now, and you're kind of the only person I can be not-lonely with, and might understand why I'm not really looking for something long-term."

"So you'll settle for me?"

"No!  Or yes?  I'm not settling, really, since you're a really good guy; you're good to me we even though it might be a lot easier to just put up with me, or even not do that.  I appreciate that."

"And this?"  I leaned in and kissed her.

We were at the top of the escalator a couple seconds later, so she puked back, but picked the conversation back up in the seats.  "I won't lie, kissing you is kind of weird, and you touching my, uh, chest even weirder, and I'm not ready for more yet, but I guess maybe two months or so is when it starts to kick in that your body responds to different things and since you've gotten used to, like, peeing differently and putting different underwear on, maybe doing other things in a new way might not be so bad, at least once.  That's how it was for you, right?"

I turned kind of red - if there's anyone I should be able to tall to about that night with Annette, it's Bingbing, but I kind of can't.

"Well, I've also got used to a bunch of girls at school saying hello by kissing cheeks, so there's that."

Right around then, the others want to know if we're talking about them in Chinese so they can't understand, so we switch to English.  The game's about to start anyway.

That's kind of what is been like the last month - we're mostly just friends, maybe feeling less weird about holding hands to keep attached while walking around the city, but when we're with other couples we'll kind of join in the public displays of affection so it's not uncomfortable for anyone.  There was a brief moment of cuddling while watching a movie a couple weeks ago, but she suddenly say up straight when she realized, which cooled off any forward motion on that.

Or did it?  Bingbing's always very careful to change clothes in the bathroom, bringing a random pairing off t-shirt and jeans in there every morning and pajamas every night, but this morning she does it in the bedroom, walking out to where I'm eating breakfast.  "You know more about how girls dress here than I do - is this all right for class?"

I look up, and for a second it's like seeing the old Bingbing ready for a night out, and it throws me.  "I,uh, only did it for a couple months, and Jordan was pretty good about leaving me be most of the time--"  She gave me a look that combined annoyance and playing to remind me that she wasn't really asking about me, so I tried to shake it off.  "Okay, uh, the skirt's all right, but unless you can button the top up a little more--"

She took it off right there, walking back to the bedroom in her bra.  "I thought so, but I figured maybe in New York."  She opened a drawer and pulled a turtleneck out, holding it up to her chest.  "Think this works?"

"Uh, sure, but if you don't mind me asking, what's with suddenly going for that stuff?"

"I've got a group presentation in class today, and Marilyn was all 'and wear a skirt and heels!' when reminding me too be on time."  From the way she imitated her classmate in English, Marilyn sounded kind of like a bitch.

Bingbing noticed that my gaze had drifted down to her chest and made a little "ah!" nose before quickly pulling the shirt over her head.  She quickly ram to the closet and grabbed a pair of shoes.  "Give it to me straight - what am I in for with these?"

"Uh, that seems kind of... advanced."  I pulled another pair out that wasn't quite so high and was a lot more solid.  "This should be good for just speaking in class."

"Thank God."  She threw the other pair back in the cost, not looking where landed.  "Of course, I'm going to freeze my ass off between now and then.  It's negative five, or, um..."  She tried to do a Celsius-to-Fahrenheit conversion for me, but went with "it's really cold."

"I haven't tried them myself, but Yuan-wei says pantyhose keeps your legs surprisingly warm."

She looked skeptical, but pulled a pair from the dresser.  She stuck a foot in and only for it halfway to a knee, and I could see her searching her memory for how a girlfriend or sister put them on.  She finally managed it, slipped on the shoes and stood without wobbling much, and looked in the mirror.  "Well, she's going to give me shit about my hair, but oh well."  She looked around for her coat, found it, threw it on, and then stood on tiptoe to give me a kiss.  "Thank you so much for helping me not get murdered by my classmate.  You're the best."

She left, and I started getting ready for my day (still looking for work).  She just called an hour ago to ask if I wanted to see Star Wars or the new Yuen Woo-ping movie tonight, her treat, and to meet her at the theater, so I guess the presentation went well.

I called Jordan, but it went right to voice mail, so I guess I should throw it open to everyone - am I nuts, or did some kind of line get crossed today?

-Max

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: And... Action?

As you might expect, I've gotten pretty damn comfortable with naked (or nearly naked) female bodies by now, both my own and others.  Not that I wasn't before I had my own boobs - I was down for naked chicks any time - but it's different now.  I still feel a level of appreciation that I doubt any girl who has never been a heterosexual man can truly understand when I wake up in the morning and see myself naked in the mirror, and when I'm in a changing room or something (but, like, not in a pervy way).  I've been naked with guys and found that I really like being picked up, squeezed, and given a little taste of a guy's strength - not really rough, but definitely not hesitant.  I don't freak out at guys' dicks, whether they're visible and erect or just a promising bulge, though that admittedly took a while.

And yet, spending two days in my underwear shooting my scenes for Ernesto's sort was weird.  I'm playing some sort of high-end escort, so I actually had to do way more with my hair than I usually do, with a wave and some chestnut coloring, on top of wearing my fanciest matching set of undies that isn't actually sheer enough to let people see my nipples or landing strip.  I also brought a nice dress to just sit in a heap on the floor (I'm half-tempted to send Ernesto the receipt from the cleaners).  The make-up lay not only did my face so that it would look properly lit on camera, but also so my lipstick would look like it had been super-red the night before but just faded enough now.  I have fun getting this body all dolled up, but the whiplash between folks treating me like a prop and then wanting me to show human emotion on a set is not really something I enjoy being on this side of.

Plus, you're half-naked around a bunch of people.  It's a student film, so there aren't a bunch of assistant directors and stuff, and there's only one other cast member in my scenes.  He's a local professional - I suspect that student shorts are a non-trivial part of his income, along with local indies and whatever he can scrounge up in New York - and is odd going from flurry to businesslike and back when Ernesto says "cut!" or "action!", especially since I get the feeling he thinks I've only got this part because Ernesto is fucking me (and correcting him to "no, it's because Ernesto fucked me once" would just undermine someone who is nervous enough).  Even besides him, though,  there's still a lot of people in the room, and that is okay for them to be watching me intently while the camera is recording, but kind of looking away until I've got my robe on while everybody sets up and tasks about what we might try in the next shot, is kind of screwy.

Annette laughs at me feeling weird about that, since she figures is about what I deserve for "I, Fembot" being such a super-sexualized thing, which is rich because she got me to pull a bunch of stuff out as more creepy than sexy.  Maybe she's right; I know the first auditions, before I did that little acting gig, had me really enjoying that I could ask a girl looking for a job to show me her tits, on how sexy she could walk in stiletto heels, that sort of thing.  It's part of the story, sure, but as someone who used to get told to fuck off by hot girls on the regular, it feels really damn good.  And it led to hiring someone who I think is going to kill it, even if she's done way more work as a burlesque dancer than an actress.  If nothing else, I know that nobody is going to watch her scenes in my movie like they might watch mine in Ernesto's and be like "meh, whatever, she's like a six" (probably because they just don't like Asian girls).

And that carried over into casting the other roles (aside - even casting a short film is fucking agonizing, since you've got to do it for every damn person in the foreground and there's like a thousand people and lining up schedules so that people can read together is a pain in the ass and the only thing worse than the idiots who can't figure out what you want from the character are the smart ones who find something you miss that means you might have to adjust everything else...).  Like, I don't need to see the best friend's cleavage or the abs of the guy who gets killed twenty seconds in, but I wanna, especially if I've just been looking at guys to play the nerdy inventor and trying to determine if they're just the right amount of schlubby.

And that's before you take into account all the producer crap I've taken on because, I dunno, it seems like cheating to hire someone to do stuff and I get a certain amount of satisfaction in spending Chen-ai's money.  After haggling with a building owner who should be fucking thankful that I want to rent his lab space for a few days, or putting what seems like too big a deposit down on lights, I deserve a few perks, whether it be checking out a hot girl or seeing if one of the guys would like to discuss his part further over drinks.  I start to understand where Harvey Weinstein was coming from until you remember that he would bend me right the fuck over a table and probably not bother with a condom.

So I'm trying to be better than that, but, honestly, there are days when, after cramming so much of getting ready to make this movie around my actual classes, I honestly wonder how Ernesto manages not to be a dick on set without having to worry about that scenario nearly as much.

Ah, well.  Shooting starts the day after Christmas, which means I've got an excuse not to go back "home".

-Jordo/Missy/Yuan-wei

Annette: Stupid, stupid, stupid!

How did I revert all the way to teenage girl after three years of supposedly being more mature, better at knowing what I wanted, and even ready to commit to being married?  It's like my brain looked at the experiences of my life as Ravi and Benjamin and said, "oh, that's got nothing to do with Annette!"

Maybe I should have just listened to my sorority sisters who were saying it wasn't cool to bail on a fraternity party for something  that was "like, gonna be all Chinese guys anyway, and you know what they say about them" (they aren't all racist, but it just takes one to make you want to book the whole house for a couple weeks at the Inn to get them some perspective, especially if the racist one is also one of the ones looking to marry well, and you might want to land yourself a parachute student, chickie).  But, no disrespect to them, I've been out paying with them three times in the last couple weeks, and while it was the same sort of baseline fun that comes with beer, dancing, and the guys finding as much reason to dress sexy as the girls, it was kind of a drag, because while some girls would be saying things like "they're just guys" when someone was being a creep, I kind of know better.

But, anyway, I squeeze myself into my Sexy Nurse costume, throw a peacoat on, and avoid the Red Line by taking the 47 to Missy's neighborhood.  She's really done a pretty good job with the place for basically working by herself between a dozen other things, and she's bought way better beer than the fraternity probably did.  I'm a little amused watching her and Ernesto together, because while I don't think that they'd end up together even if such a thought wouldn't cause Chen-ai to completely blow a gasket, but they give each other shit like people who are together.  Minus Chen-ai, maybe we'd be joking about when they finally get together, or maybe not; maybe the one time they had sex was enough to let them figure out they're not really compatible that way.

Anyway, the apartment filed up quickly enough, and I kind of get pressed into helper duty with Ernesto.  Still, I spotted Max as soon as he arrived, and ran up to say hi to him in his doctor costume, only to be stopped a little short to see that Bingbing was with him, also dressed in a nurse outfit, but opting for solid white stockings and flats rather than the fishnets and heels I'd gone for.  No cleavage, either.  Kind of to be expected, since we're all pretty sure she used to be a guy, but even though the were folks all around the apartment less covered than me, I sure felt kind of tacky in that moment.  Then she does a "hi, Annette, right?" and it irritates me, because even though I know I technically haven't met this Bingbing, it feels a bit put-on.  That's when Missy comes over, looks a little surprised at our matching costumes, but laughs, saying is not like we've got the Wonder Women outnumbered.  I drop back toward a keg, get myself another cup of Sam Adams, and let a short theater major be really obvious about talking to my boobs for a bit.

Soon enough, Missy finds me, and comments on our costumes matching, saying that's a fun coincidence.  I say it's no coincidence, that Max had told me he was going to come as a doctor, so I ran out and got this slutty thing, thinking that maybe I could tempt him into trying it out this way once, and if he liked it, then maybe we could go from there.

She got real quiet all of a sudden.  "What do you mean 'this way'?"  She knew, though, and started heading toward the corner where Max and Bingbing were standing, away from the rest of the guests.  "You and Annette?"  She had her fist up like she was going to do something stupid, so a grabbed her from behind.

Max looked at me.  "You didn't tell hi--her?"

"You said you were going to, that you were her brother and she deserved to hear it from you, and if I'd been born a guy I'd understand."

"I... may have said that.  Uh, sorry Jordo, I should have told you."

"That you fucked my best friend?  I'm letting you stay at my place, trying to help you adjust, and you fuck my best friend behind my back?"

"It wasn't like that!"

"No?  What was it like?"

"It was like I fucked him."  I felt Missy go kind of limp in my arms as I hissed this into her ear, not really wanting to broadcast the next part.  "Aside from how I was the guy at the time, not that that matters, there's no way sleeping with a dude was going to be his idea.  I was the one that wanted one last hurrah, and convinced Max it wouldn't be as weird for him later if it was someone who had started out as a girl and would be one again by the time he got his dick back."

She got enough feeling back in her legs to turn around and step away from me.  "And it just had to be him, huh?  Well, sure, I guess that makes sense."  She straightened her costume, suddenly noticed something needing a refill, and went to the other side of the room.

Me, I avoided looking at the guy I'd been planning to seduce, thinking that someone else who knew what the whole Inn thing did to your head, and instead started banging on my temple with a balled up fist.  "Stupid, stupid, stupid!"

"No, it's on me.  You don't sleep with the girl your brother's for a crush on, no matter how drink and curious you are, even if she's only gonna be a guy for a little while longer and he's committed to being a girl for the long haul.  You just don't do it."

Wait, what?  "You're being silly; Missy never had a crush on me!"

"Are you kidding?  I've read all your entries on the blog, and I was there for some of 'em.  She kissed you at that ballgame!"

"That's--"

"And you know how stubborn Jordan is.  No way 'Deirdre' puts on her first bra or dress if he's not trying to impress you."

"I was, like, gay!"

"Like that matters for a crush!  And then - oh, wow, you know what?  I bet he was okay with giving up his life and potentially becoming Benny because he knew you were attracted to the original as yourself!  That makes so much more sense than Jordan just giving his life up because of Benny and Kareena!"

"Dude, that's your brother you're talking shit about!  Be nice!  Besides, our bodies and orientations were in line after that, and one kiss she immediately walked back aside, she never made a move!"

He started counting things off on his fingers.  "Maybe she wasn't really confident enough as a girl yet, maybe she figured you wouldn't want to jump into something so fast after having your life stolen, maybe she figured it was up to you to make the first move.  Then, when all that's out of the way, you're dating Marybeth and she's seeing Jacky."

"There.  She was going out with Jacky.  No crush."

"C'mon, Annette, she totally would have left Jacky for Benjamin."

"Bullshit."  I down my nearly-full Solo cup, turn around, and clack away on my fuck-me heels.  I think I'm going into the bathroom, but wind up in Missy's bedroom instead, and flop down on her bed.  I can just reach the door with my toes and kick it closed.

Pretty soon, Missy's in there.  "Hey, can I apologize?"

"For what?  Acting like you've got any right to tell me and Max who to sleep with or not asking me out when we were single and not both women?"

"Someone's got a high opinion of herself."

"Hey, that would be having a high opinion of who I used to be.  But Max makes sense.  Why didn't you ever, you know...?"

"I dunno.  Probably afraid of fucking it up.  I mean, badass bitch I may be, but how do I get through life as a chick without you?  It doesn't happen."  She turned around and flopped down on her back next to me.  "Besides, I liked Marybeth, you seemed happy, and if it's anyone else but Max and you..."

I was about to say something but someone opened the door and was about to say they were low on vodka, only to pull back and try to look up our skirts, leading us to both plant a hand between our legs and yell "in a minute, asshole!" in unison.  He quickly backed away and shit the door, and we looked at each other and laughed.

I sat up, a little dizzy - I hadn't really drank like that since being a girl and half Benny's weight, and it always hits me worse when I move after sitting still, no matter what I look like.  "Whoa.  Well, that's that.  No Chang boys for me."

"Hey, if you want to go after Max, don't let me stand in your way.  You're seeing your sights low, but it's not like he can do better.  Just be aware, he probably fed you all that because he knows he's not half the man you were."  She reached a hand out and I pulled her up.  "Whoa, I think all that missing vodka is in my brain.  Okay if I give you some cash and you make the liquor run?"

"No problem."  We went back into the kitchen, did a quick inventory, and then she gave me a couple hundred from her purse.  Ernesto came along to help me carry it, and the night air cleared my head a bit.  Ernesto and I talked about his and Missy's projects, and he had a lot of nice things to say about my contributions.  He's really a sweet guy, but I think I'm going to need a bit time before I can really consider guys where I'd have to hide the whole Inn thing.  Maybe when I've been just Annette long enough for my time Ravi and Benjamin to be a weird thing I did when I was younger than such a big part of who I am.

I didn't immediately see Missy when I got in, so I started to go into her bedroom to return the change, but only had the door open a crack when I saw it wasn't Missy in there, but Max, with Bingbing on top of him, sucking out his tonsils while his hands caressed her butt under her dress.

I closed the door and bumped into Missy coming out of the bathroom.  "Hey, here's your money, and I'm just going to go home before the T stops running, okay?"

"Uh, sure.  We still on for the spooky scavenger hunt?"  Some guy Missy knew from some Asian students thing had roped her into some MIT thing for Halloween night, and then me so there'd be two guys and two girls.

"Wouldn't miss it.  Beats the heck out of whatever sorority stuff I'd be doing otherwise."

And with that, I left, taking a huge breath or five outside the door.  We're gonna have some stuff to tali about tomorrow!

-Annette

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-wei: Party Planner

As great as it is to see Max and Annette so concerned about me, I'm not an emotional wreck.  Sure, it was a kick in the teeth when Chen-ai stopped in to solve the whole problem of the Wong sisters on the one hand but try to clamp down on my life with the other, but on the other hand, maybe I needed it.  If I we're really twenty-one, would I be thinking of marrying the first guy I've gone out with more than two or three times?  Nah.  And back when I was a guy, I would dump a ton of bitches before they had the chance to end it with me. 

And, really, who has time to try and even deal with a long-distance relationship this year?  I've got to make a fucking movie to graduate, I've promised someone else is act in his, and there are all sorts of regular classes to attend even if I weren't trying to carve out a few hours a week to practice Mandarin on the phone with René and Romain, because who knows if I'll be able to get a visa to stay in America next year, and even if I go "back" to Hong Kong after graduation, that film industry has basically imploded, with a ton of the talent working on stuff meant to sell in the Mainland.

Don't get me wrong, all of this stuff is kind of thrilling - as much as would sit myself in and just code shit in my original life, being behind the camera doesn't mean you've got to be any less "on" than acting.  I'm working with someone in the Film Production program who's got a minor in business, and he's really helping me stretch my budget for what's kind of an ambitious sort and handling a lot of the negotiations with locations and such.  The practical end of it is so crazy - like, I've got a scene in a bar, and we've found a place that will let us shot, but it's got to be between 6am and noon, and that restricts the angles we can use because we want it to be at night and not show blackout curtains, plus we've got to get a bunch of extras in there.  There was a gag in the script about the guy in the lady-boot body pushing someone over because he didn't know his own strength, but that would have meant stunt performers and insurance!  It's kind of nuts to try and figure out what I can make look like a secret lab, because just writing "INT: SECRET LAB" doesn't build anything.  Heck, Annette is kind of pissed that we had to scrap the hospital scene that she says we need to establish that his body is well and truly damaged beyond conventional surgical repair, but Chen-ai is not going to let me drain my trust fund so that I can hire people to build a hospital set!

Compared to that, throwing a big Halloween party this weekend is nothing!

Why add that to my plate?  Because it's fucking Halloween, and while they do like it in Hong Kong, the version of it that I love is an American thing through and through, and next year being Chinese rather than Chinese-American is something I can't push back anymore.  And while I don't talk about them much on this blog, I have made friends over the past couple years, and add to that the fact that I can actually invite my brother and my best girlfriend, and maybe it will be the only time I can.

It's not necessarily a hugely involved process, in some ways.  You buy a ton of booze and some snacks - I thought it would be fun to put little pumpkin trick-or-treat baskets full of candy in various corners.  Make a playlist, equal parts top 40 and Halloween novelties.  And decorate.  I did not fuck around with the decoration; once all the furniture was pushed into corners, I made my apartment into a haunted cavern with a whole bunch of papier-maiche rocks, cobwebs, bats with little red lights for eyes, blue LEDs in every lamp, silent horror on the big TV...  It doesn't sound like much, but it was a pretty big deal.

So right now, I'm sitting in a pretty freaky-looking apartment with a super-sexy cheerleader uniform laying on a chair.  It's kind of funny, looking at it - growing up, we always used Halloween as a way to be able to bring the Chinese portion of our lives to the forefront, and this weekend it's a way to hold onto being America.

-Jordan/Missy/Yuan-wei

Annette: Getting Stuff Right

I probably should be becoming a sort of hermit right now, doing little but catching up on everything I didn't bother to study over the past couple of years because I thought I'd never get my real life back, and while on the one hand is not hugely urgent - it's apparently common knowledge that while getting into a high-end school is difficult, once you're there, it is very difficult to actually fail a class if you make even a token effort - I still want to actually have the benefit of this education.  It's a lot of material, though the fact that the classes I'm in now build upon it helps; I feel behind a lot, but I also feel like I'm getting the basics reinforced or seeing actual application more than I would.

On the other hand, it wouldn't really be great to just hole up, either.  Sandra wasn't exactly a party girl when she was living my life, but she had fun.  Hell, she joined a sorority, which I had not planned to do, so instead of having a couple of roommates who might notice that I've gotten a whole lot more studious all of a sudden, there's a whole house full of girls doing what they can to pull me away from my books.  Which is kind of okay; I wouldn't want to miss the going out/having fun/making a bunch of friends from all over part of my college years, even if I did kind of do those things in a different way as Ravi and Benjamin.

And all that "having fun" pressure is before you take Missy into account.

I have to admit, I kind of didn't really appreciate what a big deal losing Jacky was for her.  I mean, it sucked, but in a lot of ways Chen-ai injecting herself into things at the last minute was a win - I get to be me, Max gets to be Max and he and Missy can reconnect, nobody's going to jail, and nobody is trapped in a lousy body; even Bingbing #3 seems to be settling in.  But for Missy, I don't know whether losing the first significant other that really stuck or it being a sort of order stung worse.  Whatever the reason, she's been really throwing herself into things to fill time this semester, whether it be nightlife, planning her big Halloween party and costume(s), or both her short film graduation project and Ernesto's.  She really, really, really does not want to slow down.

(She even had a brief thing of playing matchmaker, but although Ernesto and I got along on that date she set up, we're not going to be more than friends)

Heck, I was feeling a few steps behind her when I got her message Saturday, saying to wear a nice dress but not something super-sexy, because I was pretty sure that this particular Saturday night was going to be a working night in.  The script for Missy's short film (which badly needs a better name than "I, Fembot") already needed another draft, but all the sexual harassment and assault crap that has been coming to light in the movie industry has us wondering where to go.  On the one hand, a guy getting turned into a girl and forced to go through all the degrading garbage women deal with seems a lot more timely, but Missy never really saw the character as someone who deserved to be punished, and we kind of don't want to make a movie that's like "this sort of thing is okay so long as it happens to certain people" (and, man, the two of us certainly don't want to say it's okay if it happens to trans people, even if we figure we don't fit that category exactly).  Sure, there's been a lot of what we want to say coming out (guys don't realize just how much stupid and/or creepy things women take until they can't ignore it), but it kind of gets drowned out by the high-level predation.

So, like I was saying, that's what is thought we were doing, but I figured I might be mistaken, since my schedule was so nuts.  I really didn't want to do anything fancy, so I found a modest little black dress that Sandra had purchased, made the walk to the Missy's apartment, got buzzed up and froze when I opened the door and Kareena was there.

"That's--"  She looked to someone I couldn't see for confirmation and then grabbed me in a hug, pulling me in so that I stumbled.  She let go and took a step back.  "I can't believe it...  I feel like I should be so mad at you!...  Were you really Ravi when he dumped me?"

"I wouldn't say dumped, so much as came out and made it clear--"  I was talking at about half-speed as my brain tried to process everything.  "How do you know that, and how do you believe it?"

She lifted her hand up and showed me the ring on her finger, a small but attractive diamond.  She smiled even wider, and, God, it felt good to let out a huge girly squeal and not feel like I was out of place and embarrassing myself.  "Oh My God, he finally did it!  It's about time, because if I'd been attracted to girls as Ravi, I would have never let you go and never would have given Ravi his life back!"

She held her hands to her chest.  "That is the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me!  Jordan.. Benny... what do you call him?"

"I usually call him Benny."

"Well, Benny said that you were just the sweetest person no matter whose skin you were wearing, and I'm so glad I can really get to know all of you, even if it was because he ambushed me after he proposed, telling me that crazy story about the Inn and how he wasn't really Chinese and the original Jordan had been Deirdre but was now Missy!  I swear, I might have thrown the ring back if Max and Ravi hadn't said it was all true, but I guess it explained how Jordan could change enough to get us to this position in the first place, and how Ravi was so different for that year, and then...  Well, and then I realized that this man was willing to give up his entire life for me, and where would I ever find that again?"  Benny had moved in behind her, and she reached up to give him a kiss.  I melted.

"That's beautiful."  I paused.  "Awkward question - now that there's a new Ben out there--"

"I thought about it, because I really would like my folks to know Kareena, but, well, even though he doesn't plan to keep my old life, we've seen stuff go wrong.  And, who knows, maybe something wouldn't be quite right if I changed back.  Kareena says it wouldn't matter, but what if me not entirely fitting in with the Changs is part of what she likes about me, or there's some chemical spark missing?  I think I'd better stay like this."  He looked over at Missy.  "If you don't mind."

Missy made a face.  "Well, if you think the spark is something physical--"

"It would never work out."  We laughed at the way Kareena stuck that in there, but I got the impression Benny/Jordan had already talked with Missy about it, maybe even before he proposed.  There are some steps you want to make sure it's okay to take, even if you'd gotten a blanket blessing before.

Well, as you might imagine, we didn't get any writing done that night, but it turned out I was properly dressed for the nice restaurant we went to, drinking a lot of champagne as we toasted the happy couple.  It was enough for me to wind up just crashing in Missy's spare room and waking up with a heck of a hangover the next day, although it eased as we all hung out, giving Kareena more of a chance to get to know me and Missy like this.  She's really surprisingly cool with the guy who used to look like her fiance being happy as a young woman, which is nice.  She seems to like these versions of us enough to openly wonder how she'll explain us being bridesmaids to her family, which is just... wow.

(We're not sure when that will be, either next summer or next December - an Indian wedding takes no small amount of planning!)

So, it looks like we'll be doing that rewrite this weekend, and I've got to get a passport!  And, just on top of that, I kind of think maybe it's not all too much, maybe all these weird Inn experiences have just got me to where I'm supposed to be, not messed me up, and I should be a little more confident dealing with things as they are right now.

Max: Keeping Up Appearances

A lot of the process of reinserting myself into my life and rebuilding it has been a lot easier than it feels like it should.  Sure, on the one level it should be easier than being turned into someone else - I've spent twenty-two years building to this, I know my friends and family, and there's magic going on that keeps people from actually believing something happened, so I bet that any memories of being "out of character" get smoothed away.  On top of that, I've got a clean slate - after graduating college in May, I had no job lined up, and Carlotta Wong didn't bother finding one when she was living my life (I know this in part because Mom and Dad have asked me how things are going on that front, kind of concerned about how little effort seemed to be made over the summer).  The only other person in my apartment right now is Bingbing III, and she gets it.

Indeed, she gets it well.

We spent a few hours solid scanning social media to see how close Carlotta and Giorgia had been over the summer, both not to be surprised by what people mentioned when talking with us and morbid curiosity - you never want to know what someone else has done with your body (even if it's really there's and just looked like yours or if the shape you've got now is a surprise or, will, whatever this is), but this situation, with them not biologically sisters anymore and not thinking they would be again, is weird.  We wouldn't be trained if they did anything, but we'd probably be uncomfortable.  No signs of creepiness aside from there just being one bed in the apartment, at least - no kisses on Facebook or Weibo or anything, nobody saying we're now like we were before the summer or pulling back on the PDAs lately.  But who keeps track of that stuff unless you're really pushing the line, one way or another.  Apparently the Wongs weren't.

As for us, it's been kind of strange.  Bingbing has kind of been looking for a new place, but she's also been busy with school and whatever else she does - Jordan and I half-joke about her spying on us for Chen-ai, but she does go off on her own a lot, though not really for long enough to go to Boston and watch Jordo do anything.  We do wonder about other sorts of spies - we gained another roommate at the start of October, because Giorgia wouldn't have been able to pay for this apartment herself with "Max" in limbo, and apparently she wasn't counting on Carlotta covering it as Yuan-wei.  The new girl doesn't seem like any sort of secret friend of the Wong sisters - she just seems like any other white college senior - but who knows?  Probably not worth worrying about unless she starts making threats.

It made me sleeping on the couch weird, though, so I bought a sleeping bag and moved back into the bedroom, although after a few days Bingbing said it would be okay to share the bed, at least with a pillow wall and sleeping head-to-foot.  Decidedly not sexy, but we're not as cramped as Benny and Annette likely were.

I think she assented to it because we kind of hang out a lot anyway.  We like a lot of the same stuff, it's easier for her to be around the people Giorgia-Bingbing knew with me around to back her up, and while her English had certainly been improving steadily, it's probably easier to have a native speaker around for certain situations, and although she's gone through a lot of the first-time-as-a-woman stuff by now, it's pretty nice to have another person who's been through the change around for support.

That said, it was still kind of surprising when, after we both got invitations to Jordan's Halloween party and I told her that Halloween was kind of a big deal in our family, she asked if we should do some sort of matching costume.  I pointed out that this would be not just like hanging out with people who think they know both of us or going to a movie together, but like a date, with drinking and dancing and working together to get ready.  I wouldn't expect anything from her, but there would probably be a lot of guys hitting on her if we weren't kind of glued together. 

She said she knew, but it would feel a bit safer if she were with me, although she acknowledged that it was a lot to ask for me to keep pretending, that I'd probably like to start looking for a real girlfriend, but, I kind of don't know.  I think it's going to be kind of hard to trust someone new for a while, and even if I don't know that much about Bingbing III, she does sometimes make me feel a little less like I've been betrayed when I look at her.

-Max

Jordan/"Missy" Yuan-Wei: Baring It All

I told myself I wasn't going to be doing the acting part of this film/television major I'm working on now anymore, but Ernesto came to me begging, saying the script he had for his senior project had something that was perfect for me, and while I think there are probably plenty of Asian-American actresses he could find, it's fun to be asked, and I'm almost certainly going to need some of his help in making my own short film.  I may have changed my major because I felt more drawn to this than the original Yuan-wei did, and I certainly like acting less, but I've got so much less experience than guys like Ernesto who have been picking up cameras and making homemade movies since they were ten that I'm way behind in practical terms even if I do sometimes breeze through class like someone who's five years older and had some real-world experience with things the rest don't.

It's a good distraction, though - as much as I'm not really thinking of fucking Ernesto again, it's weirdly enjoyable to be working on something with a guy I have slept with right now.  The boyfriend-shaped hole in my life that I probably won't be allowed to fill until Chen-ai finds some advantageous fuerdai to marry me off to isn't completely filled with Ernesto, but the fact that I know he likes me and probably would be my boyfriend if I made the right move is something to lean on, as is just keeping busy on my own short film project and other stuff.

Some of that "other stuff" involved a quick weekend trip to Montreal so that the new Bingbing and I could talk to René and Romain in person.  I met her in the airport and still have a hard time getting a handle on her.  I'm pretty sure she was a guy before, just from the effort to dress plain and avoid makeup and stuff, but the secrecy is weird.  Most of us are so glad to have people with whom we can be ourselves that we're giving out life stories before someone else finishes mentioning the Trading Post, but she knows Chen-ai put her in this position, and probably figures we won't trust her completely anyway.  Still, I invited her along because she and René deserve the chance to meet, and if she is any sort of representative of Chen-ai, then the guys deserve a chance to ask her a lot of questions.

There isn't really a good spot to do this sort of thing - not their apartment, not our hotel room, not a restaurant, not a park.  We choose one of the last in the list, where we could be away from other people if things got a little heated, but I did wonder as we met there if the hotel had conference rooms we could rent.  I mean, I guess you could call this a meeting, as it's kind of a formal discussion even if it's not business.  But I didn't think to ask that while making the reservation.

So we met.  René have me a hug, while Romain offered a handshake.  René also leaned in to stare closely at the new Bingbing, appraising what he would look like if he hadn't been to the Inn three years ago.  We sat on the grass, and I related everything Chen-ai had told me.  René and Romain both looked shocked when they found out that Chen-ai had sent them to the Inn deliberately, and René took Romain's hand when I told them about how Chen-ai had been someone else when he was born, then started crying when I said it looked like his father had been killed.

Then he took a deep breath and let it out shaking.  "I guess that's good to know."

René kissed him on the cheek.  "I'm so sorry."

"No, it is good.  I mean, it's a hell of a thing to hear that the woman you thought was your mother resents you and your actual mother just abandoned you, and the person who stole your life may have murdered the parent who did love you, but it's kind of freeing to know that all you'd really have to go back to is money, and Mom is probably after that, too.  I mean, this life isn't perfect, and I'm not sure I'm really happy to tell Jordan here 'good luck with that', but...  I do like Romain's folks, this is a pretty nice city, and...  It's not like I've forgotten being a Chinese girl, but this is like my whole adult life."

I tried not to look too happy about him saying that, because it would be really inappropriate, but it was kind of a relief not to be worrying about pressure from that side, even if it was a shitty way for it to happen.

Bingbing looked at René.  "And what about you?  I'm not planning on making the rest of my life."

René shrugged.  "Nous sommes unis.  We're together."

"Oh. Okay."

We took early flights home on Sunday, with Bingbing apologizing that she would have liked to get to know them better, but she had homework and she was still having a bit of a challenge working in English since it wasn't her first language like it was for the Wongs and me.  René said he got that - he had to get used to English and French when the Inn dumped him in Quebec - but that it would get easier.  And that next time we'd have to meet in a fun way, maybe finally making that trip back home to Hong Kong.

I finally opened Ernesto's screenplay on the flight home - I'd kind of saved it during the trip so I could give everyone the attention they were due - and immediately noticed that my character was in the opening scene, in bed with the hero, and the stage directions had her putting a bra on with her back to the camera but not actually finishing getting dressed until after their conversation.

It wasn't the makings of a bad movie, but I kind of snickered reading it, not calling Ernesto that night.  He was in my first class Monday, after all, so I just sat down next to him and leaned in.  "You know," I said just loud enough that he'd be afraid of other people hearing it,  "most people who want to see me naked just send me gross messages on Facebook."

He went red.  "It's not like that, I just thought, you know, that it would really let you show that you're smart and funny as well as pretty."

"That's sweet, but, come on, you know I'm a shitty actor.  You just want to get me in a bed and see what happens now that I'm single again."

"Wait, you broke up with Jacky?  What happened?"

"Thing with my mother.  Be really glad you've never met her."

"Oh.  I'm sorry, if faking that sort of intimacy is going to be hard or awkward--"

Suddenly it hit me.  "Oh my God!  You don't want me for this because you're attracted to me, but because you're not!  You can just have me take off my clothes and it's like my tits are just props and you won't be thinking about fucking me at all!  Holy shit, I didn't think chicks could get put in the friend zone!"

"Sssssshhhhhh!!!"  Other people had started to come in and pretend not to take an ingest in our conversation.  "No, it's not...  Look, it's not that I don't like you like that - trust me, there's a good chance I'm going to spend the rest of the month obsessing over whether you just happened to mention you were single on purpose to send me a signal - but I got really nervous just writing that scene, and this movie is going to be a huge part of my grade, and the student films are the first thing anybody looks at when we go in for interviews, so, like, I don't want to blow it and I know I can work with you!"

"That's... really sweet."  I honestly couldn't think of anyone saying that to me before Chen-ai, and having Ernesto say it made me feel a hell of a lot better.  "Fine."  I gave him a peck on the cheek.  "I'll get naked for you.  But you're helping me make a brain for my film!"

He tried to shrink into his chair at that,  so he didn't ask me when he'd get to see my script.

Which was good, cuz it fucking sucked.

Naturally, I didn't realize it sucked until I showed it to Annette over pizza at my place, and she asked if she was allowed to be honest.  I said sure, and she immediately printed it out, got out a pen, and started crossing shit out, circling the occasional thing, and making a shit-ton of notes.  "So, I get that you want to do a guy-turned-into-a-girl thing while it's still relatively fresh in your mind and all, but, dude, come on, look at this thing.  It's all gay-panic bits and transphobic stereotypes, and, c'mon, folks like us really should be able to do something smarter than that, and even if we didn't have our unique point of view, the people who will be grading this probably won't be into something that's just broad gross-out comedy.  But there's an idea here..."

So we've spent the lady couple of weeks rewriting, kind if changing the script from "this guy has his brain implanted into the body of a female sexbot and isn't that gross?" to "not only is his brain in a sexbot body, but its operating system pops up a bunch of augmented reality stuff that basically hit him with all the messages a woman absorbs about how to dress and behave to please men at once".  We've had to cut a lot of stuff I liked out of it, even some of the stuff that Annette didn't think was trash, but it's probably a better script because of it.

Now I've just got to find a cast, locations, a crew, and equipment; shoot the thing; edit it; and then do a bunch of special effects because, like Ernesto says, this is the first thing people will look at on our résumés and I'm not sure whether I'm going to actually want to manage a shoot after this but will probably always like rendering VFX, so I should have s bunch of that in there even if mousy of my classmates are trying to be realistic.

No problem, right?

-Jordan/Yuan-wei