Marc/Dustin: Internal Affairs

I guess you can say life has been on a low simmer for the last couple of months, which is why you haven't heard from me. I've been working: I picked up a job working the desk at the gym, which is great because gym membership is pretty much my main expenditure (along with rent for 2 people and the enormous grocery bill this body generates.) That's kept me busy and away from posting, and also away from moping about my life.

Koti took my declining of her proposal to be a complete rejection and breakup, which was not really what I was going for, but at least acknowledges that we had an expiry date. I would love to make peace before we leave these lives, but there's a lot of time for that. We haven't booked into the Inn until August, because of the number of people in our "chain" who want their bodies back.

After that, Koti left the house. Left town, in fact, and went back to Dakota's family. I personally thought that was absurd and immature, but I figured it was best to give her the space she needs. By now, I've earned the kind of goodwill from the house that I don't need Koti to be living here to justify my presence. It kind of came out that I was paying both of our rents and that turned sentiment... not against her per se, but certainly toward my favor.

In a possibly unintended side-effect of Koti's absence, Mary and I have been hanging out a lot. I don't know how Koti/John would feel about me and their (ex-?)wife bonding, but that's out of their control. We spend a lot of evenings together, given that when she gets off her shift, PJ is usually working. We hang out in my room or her room, always with the door open so that nobody thinks anything shady is going on. I will admit to providing the occasional back or foot rub.

Even though we've made connections with the others in the house, being the two who share a secret means that we're going to lean on each other a fair bit, because sometimes you just need to let the mask down and talk to someone who knows you're not who you look like. 

Mary, for instance, has very mixed feelings about what she describes as her "fake" relationship with PJ. "Don't get me wrong, they're a lovely person," she sighs, "And without realizing it, they've taught me so much about the world and young people today. But if I were choosing a partner for myself, it wouldn't be them. But it's what they and Cassie want, and I didn't see any reason not to. I needed something to take my mind off of what was happening between you and John."

"I understand that," I said with a sigh, feeling guilty. "I feel a bit like what Koti and I had... what John and I had... was a bit of a runaway freight train. Once the momentum started we just had to let it go until it crashed. I got so caught up in it, I worry I didn't think about your feelings..."

"John and I have felt like a lost cause for years," Mary said. "But he hates to lose, hates to give anything up. He wouldn't divorce me. He just stubbornly insisted we could make it work. He and PJ are a lot alike in their forceful nature, which is probably what turns me off about them, actually. It bothers me to think I have a type like that. Sometimes I wish it had been you and me, Marc."

"Hm?"

"I mean, fate, and the Inn, put my husband in the body of Dustin's girlfriend and you into Dustin. And that's the only reason anything sparked between you two, because you had to pretend. Suppose I had become Dakota. Would we have had the same spark? You're such a kind person."

"I'm... I'm not, really," I said modestly.

"Don't sell yourself short," Mary chuckled. "Even now I'm lying here on your bed, and you won't make a move because, well... because it's not for Dustin and Cassie to do. You won't even consider it because of who you are and who you think I am, maybe because in spite of everything you've done with my former husband, you still think of me as John's wife. You dating Koti... that was a kindness, and it had the fringe benefit of her being a cute little thing. And maybe you can forget she's a man inside, and an irascible one at that. Or maybe it doesn't matter, I don't know."

I said nothing.

"I kind of want you two to be  together, but... I also want my own Marc, you know? When he disappeared, and it was clear he wouldn't be back soon, I... I got on the apps, I'll admit. I flirted, I went out. I wanted to see what life might be like as a divorcee. But when John came back, I thought, this is safe, this is right, this is what I know... even thought it's hard to put up with at times. My whole adult life has been wrapped up in him and it was hard to let go of that."

"And now?"

"I think that, one way or the other, when we get back to ourselves... if we get back to ourselves... we'll have to talk to some lawyers. I'm done, and I need him to admit he's been done for a long time. Maybe having you will soften the blow... if he still has you."

"I... I don't know about that."

"Well, I want you to be happy," Mary said. "And I want him to be happy. And if you can be happy together, that's great. And if you would be happier without him, but he's miserable... I think I could live with that." She smirked. "This isn't anything he doesn't know, but I think he thinks I'm not serious when I say it."

I said nothing, I just stared up at the ceiling.

Then after a while, she giggled. "I don't suppose I could convince you to become a 62-year-old man? Just long enough to sign some papers."

"I think it's probably best if I go my own way after this," I said tentatively, "If I had a choice. Let you two work things out amongst yourselves."

"Smart," she nodded. "Get out of this black hole we've sucked you into."

"Cheers to that," I sighed.

"And take me with you," she added, then sat up. "PJ'll be up soon. I think they'll want a little attention."

"You shouldn't have to force yourself," I said sympathetically.

"I've done worse for worse, and less in return," she sighed, then smiled wryly. "Plus, that non-binary sucker can screw."

"Okay--!" I guffawed as she departed and left me on my own.

-Marc/Dustin

Marc/Dustin: A House Divided

As you might expect, the last several weeks between me and Dakota have been more about exploring our physical connection than about debating the philosophy behind our coupling or the way we live our lives. There are certainly a lot of unanswered ethical questions about who we really are and whether we should be doing this, and we could very well debate them all night every night, as two the very argumentative people we are. But there's an overriding principle that seems to be guiding us in our actions, which is... well, we're pretty hot for each other.

I'm sorry, but after this sentence I won't apologize for it any further. Physically, we are two young, desirable people in close quarters. We know and trust each other -- to a certain extent -- and are in a position to make this decision. It's certainly less problematic than John's and my first dalliance. Call it rationalization, call it horniness. It's part of the human experience and after many confusing years there's a relief in cutting the knot.

We are, proverbially, going at it like a couple of kids.

In the midst of all this, I began to get tired of saying "Dakota, Dakota." I can't call her "John" because she's "not John" and doesn't wished to be called as such. But if you try saying the name "Dakota" a hundred times per day in a variety of contexts you find yourself tripping over the syllables. "Can we shorten it? That'll give you something to feel like your own person."

She thought, and I thought, and we sounded fumbled through it together. "Dak, no. Kota... still a little clunky... Dee, too short for me... Ko... hm... Kody? Kodi?" We kept repeating it. She wrote it a few times to test her preferred spelling, settling on "Koti" for what she termed its "Certain offbeat childish Gen Z cuteness."

We then found a way to awkwardly premiere her new preferred shorthand. "Koti this, Koti that." Maddy and Charly were into it. "Cassie" pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, I'm not sure what she was thinking about it. Was I getting too chummy with her husband? Had I crossed a line that was somehow worse than the dating and sex?

"Don't worry about her," Koti said dismissively.

And so, it was the Dustin and Koti show all month, mostly a private engagement. There's the physical side, and then afterward we tend to engage in weird post-coital pillow talk where she'll be like, "Look at this article I saw about the way they're foisting so-called A.I on teachers," and "I realized yesterday I kind of look like Grace Kelly. Look her up, don't we have the same eyes?" (Flattering herself just a bit there.)

We spend so much time in our own little pocket universe that it's a bit of a shock sometimes to be reminded there's a world outside our bedroom door.

So when we got the news that "Cassie" was arranging a birthday party for P.J., we were a little startled out of our bubble. It seems that Mary found out that P.J.'s birthday is only a few days before Christmas and they tend to get sidelined, so she decided they should have their own day. The rest of the house took up the idea, assigning Koti to please whip up a batch of her famous vegan cupcakes. This Koti certainly isn't a baker or a decorator, but it was apparently one of the original's famous skills.

"I'll have to politely decline, I'll find something else to do that day."

"Oh, why not? These are our housemates, and we like them. Well, some of them."

"They're expecting cupcakes. Vegan cupcakes. They'll taste like dry cat food."

"They seem to like them. Koti, we can't just stay in our room and screw all day every day."

"And why not? We're adults, we've earned that right."

"If you won't, I will. I'll call up Dakota and ask her how to make the damn cupcakes and I'll pretend you did. And you can hide in our room and pretend to be sick."

"That would be the second-meanest thing you've ever done to me," she pouted. That's kind of her catch-phrase, she's not serious about it. (We all know what the meanest was.)

In the end, Koti backed down, with the ground rules being that I was not to have any unsupervised conversations with Ifena (Koti can be... jealous) and that Koti wouldn't pick any fights with the birthday person. We made the cupcakes together, on a video call with the real Dakota.

The party started out fine, but after a little while we realized it was kind of a soft debut for... Cassie and P.J. as a couple. Not that they were throwing it in anybody's face, but we saw them brushing up against each other, cuddling on the couch, just generally giving off coupley vibes.

"Cassie," Koti said, trying to look as intimidating as possible with her arms crossed looking up at the much larger Cassie, "May Dustin and I speak to you privately?"

We all marched up to the bedroom. Mary stood in the corner looking bored while Koti paced and raved.

"What in God's name do you think you're doing?! How on Earth could you think this is appropriate?"

"I'm living my life," Mary shrugged. "Well, Cassie's life."

"This is beyond the pale!" Koti hissed. "You are fucking with people's lives!"

"Oh, I told Cassie," Mary said. "She was quite flattered. P.J. was simply picking up on a pre-existing flirtation. I'm a matchmaker." She smiled proudly.

"You... you can't..." Koti sputtered.

"Everyone involved wants this. How it is any of your business?"

"It's... an unnecessary complication!"

"Explain to me the difference between what you two do, and what you have seen between me and P.J."

"It's obvious!" Koti said, moderating her voice to a harsh stage whisper. "P.J. is not one of us! You can't be dragging h--them into our shit! Dustin, back me up here!"

"I tend to agree," I said, admittedly non-committally, "In my experience, you kind of need to keep people at arm's length, romantically, if they're not, you know, along for the ride."

"Thank you," Koti said.

"But I don't think we can dictate to Mary how to go through this experience."

"What?!"

I heaved a sigh. "Just because I would make different decisions, I don't think I can say it's the wrong way to do things here. It's sort of a gray area. All the involved parties have signed off on it, seemingly. Is somebody going to get hurt? I mean, maybe, but that's their business. There's an argument to be made that by rebuffing P.J., Mary would be having a negative effect on their, and Cassie's, lives anyway, by putting off whatever was supposedly building between them. There's precedent for all of this."

I also noted that it might make a difference on some level whether Mary was doing it for herself or for Cassie, but from our perspective there isn't any difference and it doesn't matter.

"I can't believe this," Koti fumed.

"I'm not on board, but like I said, it's out of my jurisdiction. It's not my mistake to make, and not my job to prevent them from it. Above all else, it's sort of consistent with my position that you've got to find ways to enjoy this experience and live life. I leave it to Mary to define this experience however she wants, and deal with the consequences."

"Can you be my fucking partner for ten seconds and get on my side?" Koti spat.

"I am on your side, but I can't condone trying to impose our will on the situation. All we can do is wash our hands of it."

"Both of you get out of my room," Koti sneered.

"Koti..."

"John..."

"Now!"

Mary and I stepped out and walked down the hall to where our conversation would be less audible.

"Okay, is there something else going on here?"

Mary let out a sigh, her posture tensing up. "John really doesn't like P.J.," she noted.

"I know that."

"He's been suspicious of them from day one, that they were coming between us a little bit. You know, they helped me get my Etsy shop off the ground, and we spent a lot of time together..." (I haven't mentioned Mary's Etsy shop, where she sells crochet stuff, but yeah, I guess it was sort of done with P.J.'s assistance.)

"That's kind of why I pushed John toward you," Mary said with a sigh, "There was this anger that had nowhere to go, and there wasn't anything romantic happening in these bodies for us. I didn't expect it to blossom between you two the way it has, but part of me did hope that it would help him."

I narrowed my eyes at Mary. "Help him how?"

"Well, you didn't know John as a man, so I guess you might not have caught onto this... and I don't know how much he's told you about himself, but... he's kind of bisexual."

I raised an eyebrow. "You... know this?"

"Honey, I've been married to him for a long time," he furrowed her brow. "You notice things after a while."

"Has he ever... to your knowledge...?" My heart began to pound. It was so easy to pretend like this was all some big secret but maybe it wasn't.

"I don't know, and I don't want to know, but I have a lot of complicated theories about that year he was supposedly in 'Florida.'"

"Oh?"

"Well, at first I assumed he was partying with boys. Then he got back and he was so keen to go to Maine, and after we transformed I thought... son of a bitch, he knew this was going to happen."

"You really think so?"

"Things add up," she shrugged, "I don't know what to believe and I'm probably happier not knowing. I don't think I want to talk about it. But there's no point in accusing him of it. He'll deny it. Call me crazy. Swear up and down he didn't want this and make like he's a martyr for letting you screw him. He has some really messed-up things to say about you, about how you manipulated and pressured him into sex, but don't worry, I don't believe him. Nobody's making that guy do anything he doesn't want to do."

"Thanks..." I said, heavy-heartedly.

"John will never be happy," Mary said, "He just wants everyone to be as miserable as he is."

"And you married him?"

"I love the guy," she shrugged. "I should get back."

With that, she went back downstairs, and I was left contemplating just what I was mixed up in. Koti and I have fun together, but being with Koti -- with John -- is an intricate web of deceit, frustration, and double-talk. Who is she really?

I slept on the floor that night. We reconciled in the morning, calling a detente and agreeing not to talk about it as much as possible and just enjoy the holidays, paying no mind to what was happening between P.J. and Mary/Cassie.

For Christmas I gave her a unisex necklace that I figured she could take with her through various lives, whatever ends up happening. Her gift to me was not something you would buy at a store, and maybe to be sensitive, not something I should mention on the blog.

A new year will be upon us soon, and yet another shuffling of the deck on the horizon.

-Marc/Dustin