Rusty/Monica: Was the Inn our last family vacation?

It probably would have been anyway, considering the way that a couple kids not much younger than I really am were staring at their phones and rolling their eyes when their parents were trying to point things out while I was waiting for Katey on Tuesday, their southern accents making them as tourists.  I don't think Katey/Kutter and I were like that much, but maybe Dad sees it differently. 

We were shopping because Katey and Omar are heading to Cabo San Lucas for a week and Katey wanted a few sexier swimsuits and outfits.  She's been upgrading her wardrobe ever since her promotion, but a lot of it has been stuff for work or more casual, and she said she wants to look like a sexy woman instead of a sexy girl.  It felt kind of funny to be shopping for that after work, in our blouses, pencil skirts, and heels, but I get it; I kind of feel like I'm cosplaying a real estate agent sometimes, and a lot of her co-workers aren't quite so worried about the impression they give, because we kind of overshoot the mark. 

For a while, she didn't really seem to know exactly what she was looking for, which was why it was kind of funny to see her come out of a changing room in a red dress, grinning.  "I like this one!  It makes me look like I have tits!"

"What are you talking about?  You've got really nice, perky breasts!"

"C'mon, Rusty, you know 'perky' means 'small'!"  She took a look at her profile in the mirror.  "Don't get me wrong, I don't mind being able to go without a bra some days, but it seems like all of Omar's buddies have girlfriends with bodies like Emilia's, and you know everyone's going to be flashing cleavage all the time in Cabo!"  She gathered her hair up in her hand, trying to see how the dress would look with it up without actually making a bun.  "You don't get it, you can just be the fun and naive girl when hanging out with friends, but every time I go quiet because I just don't have college or some other experience to talk about, it makes me look, I don't know, insubstantial.  I know the way I dress doesn't change anything, but at least I don't double down on it."

"I suppose, although, don't you feel a bit weird going off to another country with someone?"

She shrugged.  "Not really.  I mean, don't get me wrong, I love you girls, but it feels really nice to be Omar's girlfriend first and foremost sometimes, you know?  Just having someone accept you at face value and love you for it."  She pulled me into the changing room, where she unceremoniously dropped the dress and started putting on a swimsuit.  "You know what's weird?  Emilia and Jonah.  Like, they'll be out on a date with us and I know they're having a good time, because Em really can't fake anything after a couple drinks, but then by the time we're on the subway their demeanor totally changes, and then we get home and Emilia's popping a Bud Light and falling asleep on the couch watching some basketball game.  Jonah's like that too, he's actually got a locked cabinet with romance novels, and, I mean, maybe I spend a lot of time with writers and editors, but the symbolism is kind of on the nose, right?"

"Hey, it works for them, right?"

She shrugged, and started trying on another swimsuit.  "Does it?  I mean, I kind of figure that you've got to figure out who you are now and commit to it.  Be the chick who likes sports, or the guy who reads Nora Roberts, or whatever.  Like, would they even be together under normal circumstances?"

After that, we were checking out and going to another store, so the subject kind of got dropped.  She's been posting a lot of beach pics since Thursday, though, and really seems to be having a great time with just herself and Omar.  Dad's making a good show of being cool with it, and she and Jonah are talking about maybe doing something like that once the academic year is over, although I can't tell whether they really want me along as a third wheel or not, even though they say so.  And if they do, does that mean that maybe Katey has a point about them not really being into each other as opposed to being the best people they can fake it with, or maybe even the best people they can convince themselves that they're faking it with? 

It might not matter; I'm not exactly established enough at the office to take two vacations this summer, and Monica's parents are talking about something in Europe in late June.  I gather it's something the whole extended family does every summer, even when Monica was in college, with me begging off last summer because things were kind of tight understandable but unusual. 

It's kind of tempting - I actually really like hanging out with Monica's cousins at holidays, and her family is actually really cool.  I like going back and forth with them on social media, and they've actually been a supportive of all the crazy ways I've upended this life and come out as ace and stuff over the past couple years.  It might actually be kind of fun to take a big vacation with them every year!  It's just the idea of doing it with them instead of Dad and Katey that's kind of weird. 

Well, not something I really have to worry about today, I guess.  

-Rusty Monica

Rusty/Monica: Is dying my hair really unprofessional?

It looks really silly writing it out like this, but Dad, Katey, and Jonah all think I look silly, and it was kind of impulsive, but I think it works for me and it's not some crazy blue color or anything, and I just felt like changing things up a little.

It wasn't really a hard holiday season, really - Dad, Jonah, and I went out for Thanksgiving dinner while Katey went with Omar to his family, and then I went and visited the original Monica's family again for Christmas.  They're nice folks to be connected to on social media but once a year is kind of the right amount to see them.  Monica's an only child but has a bunch of cousins, who are cool, and her parents are nice.  Having a mom and a dad feels almost excessive in some ways, although they're not being my mom and dad makes certain things weirder.  Like coming out as aro-ace.

They probably would had an easier time with it if I'd told them I was gay, or trans, or a 16-year-old boy who had been turned into a copy of their daughter by a cursed Inn a year and a half ago.  People really don't get it when you say you're not interested in having sex or particularly worried about pairing up, because it seems to occupy a really staggering amount of most people's thoughts, especially once you say it's not a big deal.  I kind of get it, because I did think about girls a lot before becoming one, but sometimes it feels like it makes people dumb or crazy. 

Of course, that means I was the odd girl out when hanging around with Katey, Omar, Dad, and Jonah on New Year's Eve.  We had fun bar-hopping, but being with two couples meant every guy and a surprising number of girls thought they were helping by hitting on me, like I needed someone to kiss when the ball dropped and wanted to start the year with a stranger grabbing my butt.  Anyway, after the ball dropped, Katey and Dad both decided to start the New Year's at their boyfriends' places and I went home.  I hadn't even gotten out of my party dress when I saw we were out of toothpaste, so I went back downstairs to grab some from a convenience store, then grabbing a couple Monsters so there'd be a couple in the fridge when I woke up, then somehow winding up in the beauty aisle, seeing hair dye was on sale, and grabbing a box.

I wasn't dumb enough to try it before going to bed, but did decide it would be a fitting first thing to do in the new year, so I went for it.  It's a pain in the neck and I went to my phone at one point to see what it would cost to have a salon do it (not cheap!). But once I got all the foil things out and took another shower to rinse, I looked in the mirror and really liked what I saw.  I was just getting out of the bathroom when Dad came home and stopped dead in her tracks.  "What have you done?"

"I dyed my hair red!  Not, like, fire-engine red, I'm still pretty obviously a brunette, but now you guys can call me Rusty again!"

"It's a little late for second thoughts about being Monica, isn't it?"

"I'm not having second thoughts; it's just that I just spent a week in California and seeing pictures of her on the wall, and afterwards talking about Monica's family and Monica's old friends, I kind of thought it was a shame I couldn't really get people to call me Rusty, or that it would be weird to suddenly ask to be called Nicky or whatever, then when I saw these on sale...  Well, I was a little drunk, but it still wasn't a bad idea!"

"Not a bad idea?  You've got to find a real estate broker who will hire you and sponsor you for your license, and you've decided that's the time to look less serious?"

"It's not a big deal - like, someone meeting me for the first time might totally think it's my natural hair color, even though I look a little Asian!  It might help me stick out!"

She just shook her head, taking off her heels and only half-closing her door as she changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants.  "I just don't see why you'd do it!  It's one thing to try to do all this nonsense with your looks for work or to get someone's attention, but you think you don't care about guys and this isn't the sort of thing that seems likely to make a positive difference."

I left to go to the gym while Dad tried to figure out how to find bowl games on streaming, and when I got back Katey was there, and she just didn't seem to think the red suited me.  Neither of them has started calling me Rusty again, though it's just been a couple days.  The folks at work barely noticed, though, and I haven't had an interview since doing it.

I dunno, I kind of like what I see in the mirror right now, but is this a crazy thing to do while trying to get a new job where folks will treat you like a professional?

- "Rusty Monica"

Rusty/Monica: Does this count as a long-term plan?

I've enrolled in a new class.  Not a language one - I'm kind of getting nowhere with Korean and while I'm going to keep plugging away at that, I'm guessing it probably wouldn't be a great idea to try to learn something else on top of it - but studying for a real estate license.  Basically, I really enjoyed working in sales with Dragon Energy, in part because it got me out and about in the city, as opposed to sitting at a desk and making phone calls all day. 

The class is on the same building as the language school - I'm not sure how many times I started at the sign over the past few months without thinking that it might be fir me - so it's really convenient.  On Fridays, I finish work at about six, run out to grab a slice, and then head back in.  Even if you're calling me 23 rather than 16, I'm still the youngest person in class by a lot.  About half the class is recently-divorced women from Long Island, one of whom did not take me saying that it was either this or medicine well at all, because I guess her ex is a doctor who cheated on her with a pharma girl.

It's kind of nice to have something to do on Friday nights when Katey and Dad are out with their boyfriends.  I'm starting to think that I'm the "A" part of LBGTQIA+, and that the original Monica was too.  A few of her college and high school boyfriend have messaged me about getting lunch or a drink while they were in the City for a meeting or convention or something, and they all seem to like Monica and wish it had worked out, but they just weren't a physical match or something.  A couple apologized for being impatient because she wanted to take it slow, or getting the wrong idea because she liked running around campus in skimpy workout clothes.

I haven't really talked about this with Dad and Katey, specifically, because I'm not totally sure.  Like, I'll be runningin the park and someone will make me turn my head, but it doesn't feel like desire so much as appreciation, I don't think.  Dad's not sure i can tell the difference, and maybe she's right, but it just doesn't ever feel important. 

And it's important to them!  Things are going surprisingly well with Dad and June/Jonah. Dad still really doesn't like getting dressed up or made up, and she's always really embarrassed when she doesn't get home until the next morning, like she wouldn't enjoy being with someone who was a woman for decades and really knows what's going on inside her. 

And I want Dad to have fun and be happy, but it's kind of making me feel like a fifth wheel.  J/J joined the trivia team yesterday, and Katey is always flirting with Omar during trivia,  so i feel a bit left out.l, kind of wondering if the original Monica would let folks at her up because it made hanging out with her friends easier. 

Anyway, it's nice to have something to do on Friday night, and I really do think being a realtor could be a really fun job! 

- Rusty/Monica

Rusty/Monica: Is it time to find a new job again?

Things aren't exactly going poorly at the language school or anything, but the three of us got a new lease to sign a couple weeks ago that has the rent going up, and I don't know that I've got that kind of raise coming.  We signed it, and Dad's taken on a few more shifts where she can, but she's also been applying to a lot of jobs that match Emilia's degree, saying that it's not just about making it to summer any more - we've got to be looking at careers.

I'm kind of not sure what kind of career you shoot for with a Political Science degree, though.  I've looked at a lot of the textbooks I inherited from the original Monica, and I'm not really feeling a lot of interest.  I'm not sure she did, either - there's a lot less yellow highlighter in them than in Emilia's and Katey's.  Dad says that's not unusual, that working on the other side of this process, as a manager, it kind of didn't matter what you actually studied, that employers just wanted to make sure you were capable of handling challenges, and that for most graduates, specific majors really don't matter, unless you find the thing you really love through it.  Razzie kind of takes it further, saying that employers don't care what you major in, just so long as you've got enough student loan debt to be afraid of quitting.

The thing is, everyone says that being a salesgirl is a dead end, but I really loved selling Dragon Adrenaline!  I'm not saying I was a true believer in the product or anything, even if I did like some of the weird Chinese flavors, but it was really fun to travel to all the little stores, give out free samples, get to know the managers, all that stuff.  There's a lot more sitting in the office at the school.

Maybe I should go for one of those pharma-girl jobs.  It seems kind of intimidating - I'm not sure I could bluff my way through how effective drugs are with actual doctors - and it also seems like there would be a lot more travel, which means a car and not having Dad and Katey for help.  And...  Well, from what I gather, a lot of these girls are looking for ways to skim off the top or for husbands.

And I am really not looking for a husband!  Sure, I've been Monica almost a year, but it's still really weird watching Katey make out with Omar, although at least he's being kind of cool about me noticing that another girl was staring at his buddy Rodrigo during our third date and finding an excuse to slip into the ladies' room and say that it wasn't going to work out so if she wanted to make her move in the next few minutes, I wouldn't actually be upset.  Rodrigo is actually a pretty good guy, and maybe I wouldn't have been looking for an off-ramp if Katey and Dad hadn't both been going on about this being the sex date, but it all felt weird.  Like, the first date was sort of a fun hang-out with Katey and Omar, then the second was a double feature at the NewYork Asian Film Festival and then talking at a bar afterward, but I wasn't exactly excited when he kissed me at the end of the night, and then on the third date, he was counting down or something.  I enjoy hanging out with him but I feel like I'll enjoy hanging out with him a lot more if we run into each other a couple months from now and aren't thinking about whether this is going to get us laid or evaluating each other as potential lifetime partners.

Still, the money's really good in that business, and maybe that's the important thing to think of right now.

-Monica (or Rusty)

Rusty/Monica: Should I be hornier than this?

Dad, if you weren't telling the truth when you said you were going to stay away from this site now, I need you to stop reading and tell me so we don't both die of cringe!

...

...

Well, Dad, if you are, that's on you.  To the rest of you, hi, I'm Rusty, although my hair hasn't had a bit of red in it since I turned into Monica last summer, and I imagine you guys have all been reading my dad's posts about me and her and Katey.   I just found this card with instructions for how to set up an account for this in the back of a drawer while the three of us were trying to figure out what changes we need to make to the place now that we know we're going to be staying and aren't planning to go back, and figure that folks who have been living new lives for almost twenty years (wow!) might have more to say than Dad or Katey or even Annette (Annette - this is not for Katey and Emilia!).  It's got to go better than it did on reddit, at least!

Let me explain the subject - I don't know if Dad just found this too embarrassing to talk about or didn't know, because her bedroom is on the other side of the living room from me and Katey, but it's an old building and the walls are thin and our beds are kind of against the same wall because that's where the one power outlet is on each side, and so, uh, I knew she had started playing with herself just a couple weeks into this whole thing.  It kind of shook me, because I was still feeling kind of guilty about seeing Monica naked when I changed clothes or took a shower and trying to hold off how often I went to the bathroom so I didn't have to wipe.  Obviously, as my Dad will tell you, I developed an appreciation of my body soon enough, but even when I decided to see what the big deal was a couple months in, it felt good, but I never looked at a guy and thought that I wanted him to do that to me with his dick.

So, fast forward to a couple weeks ago, first trivia night after we decided we were staying.  There's a guy, Omar, who has had his eye on Katey ever since we started, and he seems nice enough, but as soon as he says hi on the way to his table, Katey immediately starts flirting back, and by the time the evening is over, they've arranged an actual date for the next night.  They've gone out another couple times since then, and Katey stayed over the last time.  Dad stayed up all night and I'm kind of glad I'd already headed out by the time Katey got home, because they were still staring daggers at each other a day later.

So, the next day, I get off work a little early, coming in quietly enough that the moaning going on in the bathroom doesn't stop, but when my phone buzzes, it's a text from Katey, and I stop dead as I realize that those noises are coming from Dad!  Like, Dad hates being a girl - we know she's just staying like this because she knows Katey and I were really reluctant to give up what we'd made of ourselves since coming here!  She still needs our help getting dressed and made-up if there's a private event at the bar or something, and is just absolutely miserable every time her period comes around.  She comes out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel which she clutches a little tighter on seeing me, asks how long I've been there, and winces when I say long enough.  Then she starts in on how she's sure this must be quite a surprise, but she did say that this was our lives now, and while she's kind of worried about Katey dating someone who has so much more experience than her, she also knew that was going to be part of our lives now, so she has to accept it and move on too.

And, like, sure, but she was really into it, after not wanting anything to do with it for the whole time we've been these girls!  I told Katey about it later, and she said that maybe Dad's just been holding it in for months, and finally letting it out was what made it sound like such a big deal.

Okay, maybe.  But I really don't feel like I've been holding back!  I tried again after talking to Katey, and I couldn't even get myself to come, though I suppose it takes practice the same way it probably takes practice to get that out of your partner.  I've been looking at this blog a little, and it seems like most guys who get turned into girls are attracted to guys and dating and having sex, if reluctantly, months earlier than me.

It's trivia night tomorrow, and Katey says one of her boyfriend's teammates is really into me and I should give him a chance, and, sure, why not, I actually do really like meeting new people - I think it's kind of why I'm good at both this job and the last one even though I'm probably way too young to be talking to some of these folks as equals - but I don't really think anything's going to come out of it.  Should it?  Like, what's everybody else's timetable of going from straight guy to straight girl?

- Monica but you guys can still call me Rusty

(I'm assuming the original Monica was straight; her social media since junior high has her dating a lot of guys and there was nothing in the letter about secretly liking girls, and even if she didn't tell us where they were going, she didn't seem to avoid telling me anything the way original-Katey did!)