Alia/Rob: Everything breaks

Elaine Benes was right, in that episode of Seinfeld, when she said that a man's body is utilitarian - it's built for getting around. Even the skinny indie boys I like to date (HI TODD!) represent that to some degree. Heh, there's nothing elegant or traditionally beautiful about Todd's physique. He's thin, a little gangly. That's how I like my men. Imperfect in their perfect way.

A man's body is uncomplicated. You let the body hair grow, you get a little bit of a gut, your shoulders slump, it doesn't seriously affect the attractiveness, as long as the man has the right attitude. At least, that's my take on it. The sad thing about the way our culture has developed is that a woman's personality is often tied to her perceived beauty. If she knows she's hot from an early age, she'll act like it, and that'll make her a bitch. If she grows up not perceiving that she's attractive, she definitely won't act like she is (this is how I grew up, and I'm still not certain how I feel about my real body.) And then you get the worst ones, the girls who think they're hot, but aren't, and still act like they are. Aside from your boyband-type Jersey Shore-esque pretty boys, most guys don't think about that stuff a hundredth the amount of time a girl does in her lifetime.

That's not to say the male body doesn't have its problems. Oh sure, I don't mind being free of my monthly visitation; as proud as I was to bear that burden, it's a relief knowing that there's nothing going to be leaking out of my body each month, from a practical standpoint. I will add, however, that men who have never menstruated (which is most, but I suppose not all, in a world with the Inn Curse) don't know what they're missing, for better or worse.

But I have a really nasty habit of crossing my legs in the feminine manner. You'd think I should have adapted by now, but there are things you're just not conscious of until you realize you've held your legs in a clamplike position too long and bruised your balls. Yes, that happened. I limped around the school for days.

If you're wondering where I've been for the last month, well... I've been right here in Philadelphia, enjoying this decidedly un-Canadian winter (which isn't fair, since the report from Todd is that their winter has been mild due to El Nino. Sorry I've missed it.) I haven't been up to much. The Winter Break was uneventful, I sent small trinkets to Rob's family in the southwest, on his consultation, although he wasn't helpful (not much of a gift-giver, that one.) I stayed at home and wondered if maybe I should blog, but it occurred to me I was simply not doing anything worth blogging about. "Dear Internet, avoided catching penis in front of jeans, craving burrito." Okay, that's mildly racist, but in my defense, I love burritos as Alia too, so... there.

Oh, there was also Secret Santa. I did end up getting Don those Phillies tickets. He was very glad to get them, too. The theme of the event was partially "How 'bout them Phillies," since this was, like, right after they signed Halladay, making all the guys around the school very, very excited about their team's chances. The mood was, erm, somewhat bittersweet for me, as I am not much of a baseball fan, but I understand how devastated my hometown is by this little maneuver. But I have to play along with Phillie Fever.

I myself received a gift card and a pair of boxer shorts. Apparently the look on my face when I discovered the underpants was memorable. Cathy, my other work-friend, admitted she was the one who had picked them out for me. Without thinking how it might sound, I casually remarked, "Well, thanks for thinking about my crotch." and we laughed a little bit, but she seemed somewhat embarrassed.

Sigh. I don't know how it is with her. She jokes around a lot, but I think her unsuccessful personal life is starting to get to her, and more to the point, I'm worried she may have a bit of a thing for ole Roberto. I've been spending a lot of time with her, and I do like her company, but not... you know, that way. We carpool, because I got tired to driving Rob's car to the mechanic to get it serviced - it's pretty shot. I don't know what's wrong with it, I'm just a stupid girl who doesn't know about cars.

I theorized on these topics a few weekends ago when Cliff had come over. I don't see her as often as I feel I should, but that's partly the fault of circumstance. I work all the day and she works in the evening and she hangs out with people who are more in line with her social scene. I don't even have a social scene. Rob's social scene consists primarily of dodging drunk calls from Ingrid, Rob's ex-wife, on New Year's eve.

Though we've been in contact over MSN, I hadn't seen Cliff in months, but I called her over because one day, my computer just stopped working, and of course, in a past life, she was in computer tech.

It was a few days after I asked her that she came by, because she had to go buy a toolkit and other materials that were right at hand in her original life. I thought, if I could save a few bucks off Rob's bank account by getting his computer fixed for free, then great. I offered to contribute to the tools and such, but she said it was no bother.

She came over to the house and wet to work, perky as could be. When I had last seen her, she was morose and very uncertain in her mannerisms and her way of dressing. She was still a man trapped in a woman's body. And now? Now I guess she's a man playing a woman, not fighting it, just being. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's because she finally took to playing with herself. Maybe it's because we made reservations at the Inn this month. Maybe it's because she felt so at home working on the PC.

Like Rob's car and PC, Cliff's frustration at her predicament has broken. It's not a defeat -- being happy with who you are is never defeat (unless you're happy being a skinhead neo-Nazi or something.) Acceptance of one's situation, I think, is a victory, because until July there's nothing she can do about the contents of her panties. It was the first time I ever saw her smile.

She told me, after working on the computer for a couple of hours, that there was nothing she could do, not with the resources available, and definitely not on the cheap. So I had to get a new computer, which is what I'm using to type this to you.

"So I read about Crystal. That's messed up, someone doing that with your body?" We were drinking tea and eating cookies. "I can relate."

I shrugged, "As revolted as I am by the idea that Bryan now knows what I look like naked... it's got its benefits. Like he said, it's better him than some stranger, better someone who knows Crystal, who won't tempt her into staying. Todd's taking it a little harder than I am, because I'm down here and there's nothing I can do about it. I think Todd's disappointed that he wasn't nominated for the role of 'Guy who has sex with Crystal.' I think everyone just thinks about sex too much."

"Too much?" she scoffed, "Is that possible?"

"Sure."

"Alia, when I met you, I was a 29-year-old male virgin. I think I've earned the right to some frustration."

"Sure, and now you're a 22-year-old female virgin."

"Tori's not a virgin."

"No, but you are. And if I were you, I'd be tempted to stay that way. I don't think sexual exploration is a good idea for people like us. Todd was one thing, he had a relationship. But going out and finding someone to have sex with? Forming that kind of relationship, even when you intend to leave the body? Hell, especially when you intend to leave the body, is unfair." I was preaching maybe, but I was really just trying to make sense of my own thoughts. I was telling her about Cathy, and how certain I was that both she and Ingrid wanted Rob at least a little bit, and how I was attracted to them, but unwilling to pursue due to the complication.

"What, you've never heard of meaningless sex?" she asks.

"Of course I have. Didn't I tell you about Sean Flaherty? Oftentimes, so-called meaningless sex is more complicated than relationship sex."

"So if Cathy came to you and said, Rob, I don't want anything except meaningless sex, you wouldn't go for it?"

"No, because I know, or at least I think, I'm getting my life back, but that leaves Rob to deal with the open thread of Cathy."

"He might like Cathy."

"He might also hate Cathy. I already hate the fact that I've made as much of an impact on her as I have. He really hates his ex-wife, and she's kind of a bitch so I get it, but she's hot, so I get that, too."

She says, "That brings me to my next question." She looks straight at me and asks, "Would you... do... me?"

My eyes bulged out a little bit. I'm not going to lie, the possibility had occurred to me. Why should it be so strange? we're both in a weird situation, we both know each other, and Rob and Tori had had that association previously (and undoubtedly at some point in their current lives.)

I had already made up my mind on the subject, too, but before answering, I asked, "Is that something you'd want?"

She just said, "I don't know."

"Well, I definitely wouldn't want to be with someone who didn't know if she wanted it."

She starts to get really talkative. "Look, don't judge me, okay? I don't know what I want. I want to be back in my own body, but I'm not, and I want to be with someone. I don't think I'm a lesbian, or bi, or anything. Something is just keeping me from feeling the way about my female friends as I did about Willy when I went to Buffalo. I liked that feeling, it reminded me of the last time I was in love with a girl, which was too long ago, it reminded me of the feeling of meeting a girl and wanting to get to know her, except it was a guy, and the guy looked like me. I've never felt that comfortable with anyone, and I want to keep it, and part of that is, I want sex." She takes a breath, "And I'm embarrassed, so fucking embarrassed to try putting myself out there, because I'm scared of who or what I might wind up with, I thought I'd ask."

She continued, "And I thought, because we're in the same situation, kind of, because we're both not used to all this, maybe it would be worth a shot. Just to get it out of our systems, just to have someone to do it with, someone who understands what we really are. And then when it's all over, I go back to being Cliff and you go back to being Alia."

"I don't think you need the extra baggage."

She mutters, half-snorts, "You don't know what I need."

Things got real quiet.

"I just don't think it's healthy," I sighed, "I wouldn't feel right putting you through that."

"Even if I want it?"

"Even if you think you want it, you don't know until afterward, if anything's changed."

She looked sadly at me. She sighed, "We're having one of those blog post moments, aren't we?"

"Yeah," I said. When she never got around to posting about it, I asked if I could. So I did.

I like the way Cliff acts nowadays. She seems to be taking it in stride, and really getting into it. That said, there are doors that, once opened, can never be closed. Todd may say otherwise, but I think he agrees that sex is never just sex, especially for our kind. Todd was left with a lot of bitterness over the way Hal overdid their sexual relationship, but rarely mentions it because he thinks there's something feminine about complaining about sex -- totally not true, since the dirty little secret is that girls want sex too. We just often want it to mean something, because the feelings it leaves us with are often more... intense.

That said, I told her, it's more practical than letting her try to find her way out there. I didn't say I'd go through with it, but I did say that anytime she wanted to talk, I was here.

That's all.

-Alia/Rob

Cliff/Tori: Needs and wants

Early January, as I guess readers of this blog know, means the Inn starts taking reservations.

There was something so pulse-pounding about calling in and confirming my dates. Following Todd's advice, Alia and I have been in contact with Crystal and Willy, respectively. Willy has been so good and reassuring. Alia, as you can guess from Todd's last post, has some issues with Crystal, but they are cordial to one another. As the one of the group who works evenings rather than days, I was elected to make the call and book the block -- three sessions in the same two rooms. Greg was right about the chain links being so hard to organize, but somehow, it looks like we are going to make it.

I asked Tori about the original Costases. Apparently they have not been as good about keeping contact though, and I guess the Costases will not be able to take advantage of this situation, which is unfortunate. About Willy and Crystal's original bodies, I also have no idea. It's all I can do to focus on the people on either side of me.

As much as my credit card was reamed by the booking fees -- some paid in advance, others owe me (or Tori) some considerable cash -- when I hung up after confirming the dates (late July for yours truly) I wanted to scream with delight. I haven't imagined myself in my own body in weeks, but suddenly it's all I could think about. And suddenly all the unbearable stuff about Tori's life, Tori's body, Tori's identity, it's just something I have to wait out. I'm getting out. It's really happening. I hope.

Which kind of makes me feel a bit insecure about how I behaved over the holidays.

On New Year's Eve I was deep in Tori mode. I go through these phases where I allow my body, my current identity, to completely overrule my male instincts and thought patterns. It's been that way practically since I started being this way, but it's really been driving me nuts since Thanksgiving. It's not like I'm pretending to be something I'm not. I'm a girl, and I'm being more and more aware of what that means, trying to understand and accept the needs that go along with that.

When she was 15, Tori described, in her diaries, this intense desire to be with her friend Danny. Hell, the passion, the detail she ascribes to it comes so close to the brink of pornographic as she imagines herself messing around with him. I've behaved myself so far. I'm a responsible person, I think.

It's not fair that I don't feel as attracted to women as I used to. How did that happen? Is it because they're not acting like I should be? They act so different around me; their boobs and faces and bodies are all like I remember, but there is zero sexual tension there. I remember being pushed down against my bed in Buffalo, Willy in my body running my hands up my legs, my hands coming so close to that piece of my body I've known so well. There's nothing wrong with being a girl who wants to have a piece of a guy, right? Todd, help me out here, if you're reading.

Since I had no date, and have been outspoken about my "celibacy," I was the designated driver for Raine, Sara and Thom. We met up with Cyndi and her boyfriend Leo at a pub, a big bash there. Raine immediately goes off to work her feminine wiles. Sara and Thom split a pitcher and are all over each other by the time they order a second. Cyndi and Leo are more civil.

I was left to my own devices, saved from wallflower status only by the fact that I am a pretty girl who appears unattached in a bar. If only there was something about me as Cliff that was attractive to women as Tori's breasts are to men. That was a complicated sentence, but I think you know what I mean.

That may be the problem with boobs (I mean, now that I am used to having them and the way my clothes stretch over them and wearing a bra.) They may not be the biggest, but they're so well shaped and my cleavage was looking so good. Guys love them; I do too. I've gotten used to the eerie feeling of not being looked in the eye when men talk to me. But they don't come with a sign that says "No Jerks Allowed."

Worse yet, I haven't learned, the way some girls do, how to judge the jerks from the non-jerks right off. Some guy comes up to me and offers me a drink and I'm just like "Hey, he can't be that bad," even though I'm not drinking. And I waste the better part of an hour while this guy tells me about his car. and I know that I'm really a guy, but I'm not a car guy, and do any girls want to hear about a guy's car? And he's really glommed onto me and I don't know how to get away. I don't have the skills for this, and he smells like body spray. After a while of this, he floats the idea of sharing a midnight kiss, (with obvious implications beyond that) and Ican feel my stomach turn.

By the time he starts trying to get handsy, I'm about ready to punch him out, except I can't, I'm just cowering. Luckily, Raine somehow spotted my predicament and pulled me away to the ladies room.

"Dude, what the hell is going on with that guy?" she asked me.

"I don't know, I couldn't get away from him."

"Since when have you had a problem ditching losers? God, it's like you've totally lost your shit."

"I did lose my shit, Raine."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

I facepalm. I wanted to admit all my fakeness at this point, "I'm just... horny, and it's messing with my head."

"Well, you should've warned me. It's not safe to go out there without a game plan."

It's sad. All this scheming and conniving to get away from guys is exactly the kind of thing I hated when I was on the other side. I was the loser, I was the guy women needed to get away from. I never felt like I was getting a fair shake. But this only occurred to me afterward. At the time I was really gung ho to kick the loser to the curb.

We started dancing together to put on a show for all the horny males in the room, to intimidate them. It wasn't that long ago that when I danced I looked like a total spastic, limbs flailing in all directions. I think I've gotten a little better, or at least I don't care so much now... I know a bit more about how to work it. If you know I'm still an awkward white guy, you could still see it, but it's an improvement, and when a girl's got a little jiggle, they'll forgive it.

Then after a while of sweaty grinding, the sound cut out and the countdown began. The loser was nowhere in sight, and then somehow, maybe because she was drunk and uninhibited, Raine pulled me in and gave me a kiss (grabbing my boob for good measure.)

Well what could I do? I was all hot from the dancing and the atmosphere of the room, and generally confused anyway, so I went with it. It lasted a bit longer than it probably should have. It was a real Katy Perry moment.

And then the music starts off and she resumes her flirting with guys, ignoring me for the rest of the night, like none of it ever happened.

For the rest of the night, I was hanging out with Leo and Cyndi, who have the courtesy to refrain from pawing each other the way Sara and Thom do in public.

I didn't have the energy to go back to the dancefloor much after that, collecting up my friends around 1:30 for a relatively early ride home. Raine had found herself a guy, as per usual, so we left her. The whole way, drunk-Cyndi was verbally abusing me and Leo, which he apologized profusely for. "She gets like this." No wonder they weren't so hot and heavy at the party.

When I got home, I flopped down on the bed. I was on the brink of tears once again. I could feel my eyes watering. What a way to end 2009. There are times when I think how amazing this experience is, but as often as not it's a pain in the ass. What was I thinking? I'm not a hook-up kind of person, even in this body.

"Get ahold of yourself, Tori," I told myself... don't ask why but I find it far too awkward to refer to myself as "Cliff" even in my private moments. Cliff doesn't have long hair, doesn't have beautiful eyes, doesn't have nice tits.

I slowly peeled my shirts off. Let my jeans fall to the floor. Reaching back with one hand, I unclasped my bra, letting it fall away. I lay on my bed, letting my breasts flop upward. I rested my right hand on my left breast and began to massage and slid my left hand into my panties. I've been thinking about this for a while and it's only out of fear and awkwardness (I live in a house full of strangers who are relatives) and had to figure out on the spot where to touch, where to put my fingers, how deep to go. How fast I wanted to do it. A feeling of warmth, of excitement flushed through my body with my two hands working in rhythm... God, it was like nothing else. I wanted to scream out, but all that I could manage was a quiet, high-pitched squeal, and then... then I stopped.

I just sat up and started laughing. My sheets were damp; I needed to set them aside for laundry and get fresh ones set after cleaning off. But like I said, at that moment, I was just laughing at myself. So caught up, so carefree. Oh, God. What a moment.

Laughter gave way to embarrassment and a whole host of other mixed emotions because I couldn't help but feel like somewhere, somebody knew what I was up to. And now you all do.

It's good, though. Real good. I've got a whole seven months of it left, if I want.

Greg/Priya: Catching up on a snow day

So despite the fact that its been a week since snow covered most of the midwest, today is the first day that Adlai Stevenson Elementary has canceled school. It wanst really because of the snow, its because of a busted water main, but the same rules as a snow day apply so they sent the snow day email out to all the teachers.

This of course finally gives me some time to blog. You think having a two week vacation would give you more time to sit around and write about how you're feeling in your new body, but quite the opposite was true.

Vacation began, as I mentioned in my last post, with a snowboarding trip to Colorado with some other teachers. It was two guys and 4 girls. There was Rachel and Steve, who are married (Met at the school), Anne and Ron, who were dating, and Simone and myself, who were the 5th and 6th wheels and would be sharing a room.

Simone is a 6th grade teacher who I had barely spoken to this year, and was only a casual acquaintance of Priya's. She was actually pretty cool but not much of a snowboarder. Neither was Priya, so the plan was for the two of them to hang out on the Bunny Slopes while the more experienced snowboarders ran the more challenging slopes.

This turned out to be pretty boring for me because as Greg, I was a pretty good snowboarder, and thats hard to do growing up in Illinois where there are no hills. It took me a couple times down the mountain to figure out my balance in a new body and lower center of gravity, but after I got accustomed to that, technique took over and I was fine, much to Simone's surprise. I didnt abandon her though, and actually gave her some tips, saying I had been watching snowboarding videos on youtube for help.

At night we all met up and went to some of the local bars, and I once again discovered what happens to school teachers when you get them out of the classroom and into the world, especially 800 miles away,...they go wild. Like, college freshmen wild. I think it comes from having to spend 8 hours a day being a role model and responsibility in the life of children. Sorta like being a parent, except you get paid and your shift ends at 3.

Simone especially went wild.She didnt get very drunk, but she sure wanted to attract a lot of male attention. She wound up taking a guy back to our room, and I had to sleep in the lobby. Which wasnt very nice of her, but in my past life I prided myself on being a great wing man,and wasnt about to cockblock Simone. She thanked me the next morning, explaining that it had been a while for her and she owes me one. Women are so much more sexually assertive than I gave them credit for. At least some women. Might be a generational thing.

We got back from Colorado on the 23rd, so that everyone could spend Christmas eve with their families. However, when I called Priya's mom asking what time I should come over tomorrow she asked me what for, and then it dawned on me. Christmas, for all its commercialism, is a Christian holiday, and Priya's family isnt Christian. And they didnt celebrate Christmas.

This made me sad and philosophical at the same time. There is nothing like being cursed into the body of a totally different person to make you question your understanding of God and religion. Theology aside, I was missing out on one of my favorite holidays. I wound up buying a little fake tree and putting it in the apartment, just as kind of a reminder of who I was inside. I wound up spending much of the 25th texting Amber and hearing about her Holiday with Dee and my parents. Really made me miss her despite seeing her every day.

New Years was less depressing since its nondenominational and I was going to a party at a friends house. At least she was supposed to be a friend, id never met her before, but she knew Amber and vicariously knew Priya. It wasnt the first time id been to a party where people knew me but i didnt know them, so I managed pretty well, that was until I ran into someone I knew from just my Priya-life.

It was Will the pharmacist who Amber had set me up on an ambush date back in September. He had called me back but I never really responded with interest and he seemed to take the hint. (Amber took the hint to, since she hadnt set me up on anymore dates). He was there by himself, also a friend of the hostess. We actually talked for most of the night. We actually liked a lot of the same things so it was pretty enjoyable, until midnight.

At the stroke of 2010, Will kissed me. I was too shocked/buzzed to pull away and its not like he did anything that bad, but it still spooked me. He picked up on this and apologized and said maybe he'd call me sometime. I nodded nervously. I couldnt exactly say "sorry Will, but this girl you have so much in common with is gonna be an entirely different person in 6 months so that might put a strain on any relationship"

That also gives me a good segue in to the real reason Im writing today. Tomorrow is the opening of Inn reservations! Ive never been so excited for a day in January before, but Im all set. We found a break in our chain, but its much sadder than previous ones. About 4 "links" back, someone was transformed into the body of a 73 year old man, who died of a heart attack in his sleep. I dont know much about that person, only that its a true tragedy and probably caused a lot of anguish for the person who became him as well as the man he became. Its causing me to be extra careful and drive very slowly for the next few months.

Stay save everyone

-Greg

Todd: Mysteries part 3 -- Nothing's ever done

There are a few reasons I found it easy to be attracted to Ginessa. One, she's hot. I have a thing for exotic-looking women; if you'd ever met Alia, you'd understand. Two, we come from the same world, sort of. We understand a lot about each other on a sort-of intuitive level that is difficult to explain. Inn folk, even when they disagree, have a sort of mutual respect, at least the ones I've met. Lastly, she just seems comfortable being herself, whatever that's supposed to mean. She's very at ease in her skin, not a prim and proper lady, but one who knows how to command a situation if she wants to.

The first time we met, and often in our letters, it felt like Inn stuff was off the table for her, conversationally. In a kind of "methinks the lady protests too much" way, she wanted none of it. Once she got the sense that I was not a judgmental guy, though, I think she eased up on it. I think a lot of it is her defensiveness from being friends with Darren/Jamie, which apparently wasn't always an easy thing to handle ("I can't say too much about her, but she's getting better.")

"I just find it amazing," she told me over beers at my place, "I met you, and you were this woman, and here you are, looking completely different... I have a hard time believing it, but you're so much like I remember. It's more than a little weird."

"Having Bry around sometimes, and the blog, helped me keep track of myself."

"Can I be honest?" she says, "I'm so glad I didn't keep up on the blog. One, I'm not a writer. Two, it feels like I would've just spent the whole time beating myself up over it. Maybe I gave in early, but I'm happy, and I have been for a long time. Well, I'm not always happy, but it has nothing to do with my body."

Eventually, the way conversations go off in tangents, we began to reminisce about the moments we decided to first have sex in a female body. I told her I felt like the Universe was conspiring against me. Hal was getting his vasectomy, Anne-Marie was on my case about it, I was horny as hell. So many different signals seemed to be pointing me in the same direction. She laughed at that one, "Yeah, I know the feeling."

I asked her about her first time. She glossed over the details. I get the sense she doesn't really like talking about it. "It was a mistake. I should have waited. I mean, it was way, way too early. I was not nearly ready for it, and I barely knew the guy." It was not her husband, but it was the only other guy she had sex with. She paused a moment and smirked, "I remember when he whipped out his cock, my eyes popped out of my head, like You want me to do what? And now, heh." 'Nuff said.

We ended up going out for New Year's to a house party at a friend of Bry's and I. I watched from afar as Crystal/Alia was being chatted up by a couple of guys, trying to suppress my overprotective urges. We've had talks, and I should trust her, but I didn't. Something about her just seemed untrustworthy. And all night people kept pointing her out to me and asking if it was awkward to be around her now that "we were done." I told them nothing's ever done.

At the party, I made like Ginny was my date. She was more of a life preserver. There was a very, very attractive girl who seemed interested in me. I told her I was taken and she said it could just be our little secret. Cue Ginny, playing like she was my woman, a jealous type ready to choke a bitch getting too close to me. Bry sat morosely in the corner, and spent a lot more time talking to Crystal/Alia than I did.

At midnight, I kissed Ginny, a polite, lips-sealed grade-school type kiss. Then she got drunk and developed the amusing habit of slapping asses. Also at the party were Erica LaFleur and Sean Flaherty, but Sean has made it clear he doesn't want anything to do with me. Eric was polite enough to acknowledge me at the snack table, which is the least she could do since I impregnated her and all.

Ginny and I left early. The next morning, though, she was waiting for me in the kitchen while Bry was still conked out.

"What's up?" I asked.

With the uncertainty of a woman with a minor hangover and some bad news to tell, she said, "Listen, Todd, I wouldn't be a very good friend if I didn't tell you this, but you know how you were saying Bry had a girlfriend he wasn't introducing you to?"

"Yeah." Two posts ago, but really I'd written it sometime earlier, I wrote 'He's seeing someone, although our hours don't sync up to the point where I've met her yet.'

"Well, I saw her last night. Todd, it's Alia. I mean, Crystal."

What.

"I was trying to get to sleep. They came in at about 4, all over each other. I didn't look, but I heard their voices very clearly."

I sunk into the couch. For a while I didn't know what to say. So I asked, "Is she still here?"

"No, she left early this morning."

Hot with rage, I pounded on Bry's door, something that is strictly an emergency measure. Through the door he cursed me out before relenting and opening. When I saw his face, I didn't have any time to be subtle. I growled, "You're fucking Crystal."

He stopped in his tracks and sputtered, "Buh, wha? What makes you say that?" which is exactly what he says when he's called on his bullshit.

"Ginny saw you two last night." I looked over at her for confirmation, and she glanced away, trying to remove herself from the conflict.

Bry tried to wriggle out of it for a while, stammering things like "Is that all the proof you've got? You don't know the whole story, that's not what it is at all," before finally admitting "Well, okay, so we're... whatever. So what?"

"So what? So what?!" I'm flipping out, "You're fucking her! Do I need to spell it out for you?" I ranted and raved about boundaries and respect and all this other self-righteous stuff.

I couldn't believe Bry didn't see what was wrong with this. But he let me keep going, and when I was out of breath, he put his hands on his head like Dr. Cox, and asked if I was through. I'd thought I'd made my point pretty sufficiently, so I wanted to head what he had to say for himself.

So he says, "She's not Alia, you know."

Pause. I tell him, yeah, I know that.

"So what's the problem? You don't own her. She's not your girlfriend. She's a stranger to you. You've barely spoken to her. She thinks you hate her."

"I don't hate her," I objected.

"Well, I know, but that's what she thinks. We've gotten to know each other. She likes me. I like her. Things happen."

"You crossed a line here," I tell him.

"This is beyond your control, Todd. This is just like with Erica and Sean. That has nothing to do with you, and neither does this. She can be with anyone she wants. And you're lucky -- for fuck's sake, you are damn lucky she chose me and not, like, some stranger who doesn't know the truth. She trusts me."

"And what happens if she gets attached to you, when we have to send her away to Maine, and she doesn't want to go?"

"That's not gonna happen."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because she cares about me, Todd. Because she knows I want to help you get Alia back, and she wouldn't betray me that way. We're all on the same side here. Don't act like I'm betraying you here. It's the opposite."

I was suddenly feeling very overwhelmed. I can't remember the last time I'd felt so "put in my place."

I never thought of myself as someone who needed to control things, but my frustration at the Erica-Sean thing seems like part of this. The universe seems so big and unyielding, I want things I can command, but there's so much beyond me. It doesn't do wonders for my ego.

So I ask him, "Does Alia know about this?" He says no, he wanted to tell me first, because he know she'd end up telling me. We ended up telling her later that day. Her feelings were... mixed, to say the least. She has plenty going on in Rob's life, and she's not terribly comfortable with the idea of Bryan coupling with her body, but... well, you have to admit there's something in Bryan's logic. Whether this was something he came up with before or after his pants were off, I don't know.

It was on the 3rd of January that Ginessa headed home. The weather took a sudden turn for the colder in the New Year and Ginny took that as a sign that it was time to head home.

There's something very appealing about Ginny's life. It's not the one she was born with, but it's hers. She told me that when she was preparing to marry Gavin, she was still an ex-man doing what she had to do to survive, living in temporary solutions. It was afterward that comfort and security came, and something she calls love, when she really stopped being Mark and became Ginessa. For better or worse, she has her life, she makes decisions for herself, she is pretty much in control and doesn't rely on anything supernatural to provide for her. I hope to get back to that place as soon as I can.

But it's a long way away yet, and like I said... sometimes it feels like nothing's ever done. Maybe Ginessa proves that wrong. But I know nothing's done for me, yet.

-Todd

Todd: Mysteries part 2

How chaotic my life is that an entry I started trying to write on the 2nd didn't get posted until the 5th, and now here I am on the 7th trying to remember what happened in between.

Ginny had checked into a motel. What kind of fight she must've had with her husband that led to her wanting to make an impromptu trip north she didn't really explain, except that it was about whether or not to have kids, and that obviously it was a big deal. I helped her bring her stuff over to my place and let her crash on my couch. I forgot what it was like to have a female under your roof. I've missed it.

Nobody ever asked me if I wanted to have kids. I woke up one morning in a body that already had them. I hated it for a long time, resented the lack of control I had over my life, or what I thought should be my life. This was made easier to deal with by the fact that I did have a lot of time to myself, but I didn't have anything to do during that time except watch TV, eat and masturbate read. The rest of the time my life was controlled by the demands of the kids and husband I'd acquired, and all the little needs that went along with them. I can't believe how much I left out of this blog. A commenter noted that I seemed a lot happier when I was Anne-Marie. I think I didn't complain too much (and therefore barely spoke about it, because if I had believe me it'd be to complain) because part of me believed I deserved whatever misery I'd gotten. And part of me still believes that, because I've been a shitty boyfriend and a lazy human being. The truth is, I'm probably not those things, but far be it from me to realize that.

I probably seemed happier because I was complacent, glad to go along with whatever I had to deal with because I believed (rightly) that sooner or later it'd be over. If I woke up one day and learned that my chance to go back to the Inn was gone, I probably would've flipped my shit like nobody's business. I'm only unhappy now because of who is not in my life, in case I haven't made that clear. I think I have. I remember one time trying to corral Hayley and Connor into the car for a family gathering but Connor was playing Little Big Planet incessantly and I really lost my cool, yelling at him like some bitchy mom. Once I calmed down I freaked out privately about how out of control the whole situation had gotten, how it was affecting my behaviour. All it was was trying to get "my" kids into the car to go see family members that I don't even care about for reasons I didn't want. And somehow I was still capable of getting that irritated that easily. That's the kind of shit I didn't write about. Maybe I should have. This blog would feel a lot more complete.

I didn't, and don't, believe that the Inn affects the way one feels about things, behaves, thinks, acts, at least not in any magical way. Having lived through it, I certainly believed I was still in control of my every thought and desire, I was still the one making decisions. I only behaved differently because I was in a situation that necessitated a different type of behaviour. We know that the curse make a man into a woman physically; I believe that it's the situation that makes a man into a woman mentally. Bryan didn't want to be a girl acting girly and dating boys, so he became a tomboy who dated a girl. I wasn't going to go around finding lesbians who would want to bang a middle-aged mom, so I took what was there and convinced myself to put up with it.

Ginessa doesn't seem to have been anything other than a woman. I don't mean because she acts like a woman, I mean because she acts like she knows what she is. The morning after she first stayed over, she was sitting at my kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper, like any regular person. I remember getting to that place as Anne-Marie (Ginny must've gotten there long, long, long ago) where every day stopped being about the horror of a new life and instead about the normalcy of your own life.

I don't know how she fell in love with Gavin, I don't know how any woman falls in love with a man, especially having been one (having been a man who has had a woman in love with him, and having been a woman living with a man. Either way.) I think this baby-thing has really shaken her up, made her question her decisions, or second-guess the place those right-seeming decisions brought her. Who gets married without thinking of kids? She has to have seen this coming. It spooked her good, though.

I told her nobody asked me if I wanted to have kids, but I ended up with them, now almost for a second time. If someone had asked, I'd have said no thanks. But the truth is, being a parent is no worse than accidentally turning into someone else, and if you can handle that, you can handle anything. If you'd asked me if I'd want to spend a year as a woman, a mother, a wife, I would've laughed in your face without a moment's hesitation. And while I wasn't happy during that time, I don't regret it either. There you go, Bry. How could I? For starters, I made it back in one piece. I got an experience that extends beyond the imaginable, beyond what I can truly explain or even understand. Wouldn't have chosen to be Anne-Marie. Even if you lined up a hundred women and said I had to be one, I wouldn't have chosen to be Anne-Marie. I could've done worse, though. And I don't regret it. And I don't see Ginessa regretting a lot of her life either. But this kid thing, man! It's really got her tripped up.

Well, I think this is a problem without an easy answer. And I don't particularly do well when there ARE easy answers. Ginessa will either go back to New York and have a kid, or she'll go back to New York, fight with Gavin about it, and maybe they'll split up and she'll have to forge some new destiny for herself. Sadly, life is not a simple, straightforward story.

While she was here, she played girlfriend. Not romantic girlfriend, but "girl-friend." I indulged her in her shopping and we went to see Avatar, and I showed her the sights and introduced her to people who know about the Inn.

I hate to say this, especially considering the situation, but Ginny's the first woman I've found attractive in a long while. I mean, I see hot girls around a lot of the time but I don't approach them the way I used to, with confidence and, like, a plan. I just watch passively because I don't want to allow myself any dangerous thoughts while Alia is in Philly. Aside from Crystal/Alia and certain other people, Ginessa is the first female I have spent a significant amount of time with since getting back, and it gave me a warm feeling that was tainted by guilt. Guilt of me betraying Alia with those feelings (fleeting though they may be) and guilty of her already being on the rocks with her husband. I hate myself for the fact that, had I done anything, she wouldn't be the first married woman I'd fucked. That year. Ugh.

Once I'd acknowledged it to myself, at the end of the first very long day with her, I felt shitty. So I spilled my guts. "Ginny," I says, "I want you to know that I'm in a very vulnerable place right now, so if you're getting a weird vibe from me, just know that it's because you're just a really hot girl who is also very cool and I like spending time with you. That's all." Yeah, I've really lost my way with words.

She looks at me for a minute like she's trying to wrap her head around whatever it is I'd just said. "Todd, hun, are you saying you want to fuck me?"

"No, no, I mean, yeah who wouldn't, but I don't intend to do anything about that. I just meant it as a compliment."

She laughed a bit and sighed, "That's so wrong. Not quite as wrong as the fact that I've thought about it too, but pretty damn wrong."

"You've thought about it?"

"Sure. I mean, not seriously. I'm a married woman, for God's sake. But the idea had occurred to me that if I was going to cheat -- which I'm not -- I could do worse."

"Well... thanks." Then, since I could think of no appropriate gesture at that point, extended my hand for a shake.

She went in for a hug instead, and said quietly in my ear, "Do yourself a favour and keep it in your pants until Alia comes back." That's my New Year's Resolution.

I told Alia about this later on MSN. She replied with "Lol. You're an idiot, you know. But if you wanna come down here I wouldn't mind." I politely declined, but I'm counting the days until she makes it back to Maine.

The story of New Year's, and other stuff, is a relatively simple one, but I've spent so much time trying to make this little story into big thoughts that I should give it a rest. More later.

-Todd

Todd: Other People are Mysteries

That's what I've learned about the world since my trip to womanhood and back. I got only a fraction of the wife-mother experience, only a sliver of one woman's life and it opened up all these questions, about all women, about men, about myself. I used to want to understand women, now I don't believe such a thing is really possible. It's hard enough just trying to understand yourself. There are so many things I did when I was Anne-Marie that I don't even know why. But this isn't really about that.

Working over the holidays really got me down. My entire life became the retail world. And I like my job, inasmuch as I can enjoy a wageslave retail gig, talking about movies and music to customers who think I'm out to cheat them because I wear the uniform of a big company. It got fairly ridiculous over the holidays and there wasn't much time for me to think about anything else. I sleepwalked through Christmas with my family and made some very obligatory outings on New Year's. More on that later.

There are these kids that come into the store. I don't mean any specific kids, but it's a type of customer we have, teenagers, usually in the first couple years of high school, 15, maybe 16-year-olds. Usually in small groups of mixed boys and girls, usually it looks like at least one couple in the mix, possible their first relationship. That bums me out for whatever reason, seeing these kids with their lives ahead of them, getting the fun of a new romance for the first time in their lives. I miss that. I've thought I was in love a lot of times, but I only really was once, and she's still in Philadelphia teaching high school English.

Todd the former-woman isn't Todd the CD seller. My life has gone on. Bryan's life has. He's seeing someone, although our hours don't sync up to the point where I've met her yet. Maybe it's not serious but I do hear them fucking ever so subtly in the next room. Good for him. I know he's been in love, or at least he once told me he was, but he wasn't loved back, so he doesn't carry a torch. That is a man who knows how to get on with his life. Or maybe he still thinks of himself as a 15-year-old girl pretending as a man. Like I said, other people are a mystery -- Bryan in particular. He never got back to me about his investigation of Crystal the new Alia, beyond the name tracing to a different, more low-rent suburb of Cleveland. I think it was Cleveland Heights.

I was all super-absorbed with my own depression, and then on December 29th, a woman walks into the store. I was busy with a customer so I only caught her from the corner of my eye, but I sensed a familiar appearance. As soon as I had helped that customer, I turned my attention to this woman. She was about 5'6, dressed elegantly but warmly with a sweater, long coat and scarf, the curve of her beautiful round breasts apparent through the layers. Low rise jeans leaving just a hint of skin bare beneath the waist of her sweater -- it was a warm December in Toronto. Leather boots with low heels. Tan, light-brown skin with long brown hair pulled back demurely, small gold earrings, undecorated lips. Big purse slung over her shoulder. She looks at me uncertainly with her big brown eyes and I look back at her to signal that even though she doesn't recognize me I recognize her and I have to interpret she must have come looking for me.

She guesses, "Todd?" as if it'd be embarrassing to be wrong.

"Ginessa," I smirk, overplaying my confidence in our now-mutual recognition, "Long time no, uh, see." I had absolutely no idea how to react because apart from my sparse conversations with Bryan and my usually off-topic conversations with Alia (either Alia) the Inn has not impinged upon my day-to-day life lately.

She melts in the warmness of the situation and hugs me. "Oh my God I am so glad to see you. I'm so glad I was able to find you. When do you get off work?" It was a couple hours yet. She asked if there was a coffee place nearby where we could meet. Of course there was. This is Toronto.

While I continued to work, she browsed the store. I've never mentioned it by name, but I work in a very large CD/Music/Video Game chain store that does not exist in the States. We also sell books, but only if you like books about music or teenage vampires.

Once I clocked out, I took her down Bay Street to a favourite hole-in-the-wall non-chain coffee place I used to go often with Alia. I asked what she was doing in Toronto, she told me, obviously, she'd come to see me.

I say I haven't had the Inn impinge on my day-to-day life that much. That's true. But of course I haven't left it behind. I have had correspondence with Anne-Marie and Alia and through them I get updates on people like Cliff and the new Kalli and Julia. I have also kept a pen pal relationship with Ginessa, whom you'll no doubt remember was once a man named Mark, although that was a lifetime ago for her. I met her once in person, when I was Anne-Marie, back in March. I liked her, I admired how fully she'd seemed to move past her old life. She'd gotten married, although it was technically a green card marriage, she professed she did love her husband Gavin. Our mutual friend was Darren/Jaime, whom I haven't kept in contact with, not through dislike, but I suspect she probably didn't care for me goofing on her.

Ginessa and I were able to bond despite our differences, though, because we had both given in to certain parts of the change. Hers was permanent, mine wasn't -- I hadn't thought it was when we met, and wasn't distressed. Jaime was still stuck in a place where she couldn't seem to admit it if it was. Ginessa, once an aspiring football star, was now a clubbing, would-be actress wife. And it didn't seem to bother her.

Didn't seem to.

She didn't express a lot of discontent in our infrequent letters. She'd vent about Gavin's particular habits, apparently he's a fussy guy (to be a stage director, I guess you'd have to be) and bemoan what she considered to be a sometimes one-sided sex-life. I wondered whether she missed sex from the male perspective the way I did. The female orgasm is nice, but elusive, and there's something really cool about being "in control." Not that women are never in control. Anything can be both ways, and everything is a mystery, like I've said.

But she didn't run away from her husband because of sex. Not directly. She did it because, after three years of marriage, the fact that they had barely discussed children seemed to be eating away at him. It was clear this wasn't just a marriage of convenience, it was a relationship, and he wanted it all.

"And you?" I asked?

She sighed. "I don't know what I want anymore. I don't know if I ever did. I used to think every woman, deep down, wanted to settle down and have babies, and it was their job to convince the man to go along with it. Now I'm a woman, I'd be the one getting pregnant, giving birth, and the idea is too much for me to handle."

"You've been a woman for years, did you really never think about it?"

"Of course I thought about it. But when Gavin suggested I go off the pill, it got real."

"Do you think this has something to do with... the inn? Your old life?"

She hissed, "I'm not Mark anymore. I don't want to go back to the Inn. I'm done with it. I used to have to repeat that to Jaime-- I used to have to repeat it to myself, even before that."

"I know."

"You never gave up on the idea that you were Todd, though. I like being Ginessa. God, if 20-year-old me heard me saying that, he'd kick my ass... if he wasn't against hitting girls. I just don't want this to change."

"Tell him now isn't the right time."

"I can't do that. Financially, we're amazing. Gavin's union has good benefits. We're in love, the sex is great... well, it's good. I'm hot."

"Yeah, you're hot all right."

"I don't want to be a pregnant lady. I don't want this to ruin my relationship with Gavin. I don't want to raise a kid!"

The more she talked, the more I sensed it actually was about the Inn, but that's just my interpretation. Not that she didn't want to be female, but maybe she felt like if things got too real, she could go back and roll the dice again. A lot of (horribly unprincipled) people seem to use it as an exit strategy to their crappy lives. Ginny's life doesn't seem so crappy. But maybe being an Inn-survivor makes you a bit of a commitment-phobe.

I told her, "Did you know I almost cheated on Hal?"

"What?"

It's true. A few months before Bryan and I went back to the Inn, I met a guy named Jack. Not long after that, Hal's father got sick and for whatever reason he decided to express his stress with excessive fucking. And I went along with it because by that point I had this whole philosophy about putting his needs before my own hang-ups because hey, it's not really my life. But things were getting out of control and I needed something of my own.

I liked Jack, the way a dude admires another dude. The poor guy was heartbroken and he seemed nice, smart, kinda charming. So I sent him Anne-Marie's way -- at the time she was "Julia," struggling to keep the reins on "Kalli." She indulged him in a few dates but as far as I know was not overly into the idea of seeing someone. Since I had a friendly connection to him, he complained to me of his sexual inadequacy. I almost fucked him, just to cheer him up.

I told Ginny that a part of me regretted not doing it, because it would've been at least as honest, if not moreso, than fucking Hal. Hell, it would've been far more honest than fucking Donna. But I didn't, obviously, because I didn't want to fuck up someone else's life.

"But you've got your own life, now," I told her. "This is your life to fuck up. But you can't keep things going. Maybe one of you will relent on the kid thing, or maybe you'll end up divorced. I'm definitely not the one to give you advice."

"I know you're not," she smiled, "That's why I like ya, Todd. You get it."

The issue, of course, was far from resolved, and Ginny is still at my place, crashing on my couch... I have a lot more catching up to do with this blog, so stay tuned. But I've got to go to work right now.

-Todd

Cliff/Tori: A Christmas Story

Sometimes I worry it's hard to keep up with all the characters in this blog. I mean, I never thought of myself as a "character," or any of the people in my life... they're real people to me. But to you good readers, they're just names on the computer screen and it probably gets confusing. We're just characters to you, not people you're likely to meet. But if you live in Philly and you see a short pretty girl with long dark hair, that might very well be me.

I was thinking about that because I've been reading the diaries and it's a very tough task to keep all the "characters" straight, because she writes about them for herself, and since she already knows all of them, she doesn't have to explain them to herself, which means for people like me, it's awkward... especially when she uses codenames for people she doesn't like, which occasionally she does. Mostly, superficial remarks about people she doesn't know very well, which I find privately amusing considering my condition.

So right now I'm trying to limit the number of characters in my story. A person's life has many minor characters, you know?

Mrs. Pearce and I had pretty much made up by the time Christmas came around. We actually had a very nice moment where, after I decided to stop hiding from her, I went right up to her and I delivered a little speech I spent a long time drafting on in my head (and on my computer,) a plausible explanation for Tori's reluctance to help her do her hair. I kept it vague, basically telling her I've been "going through some things" lately, and that I didn't feel that hairstyling and the like was a part of "who I am" anymore, and that I needed to find something I was more comfortable with.

She seemed to understand. She didn't hide her disappointment, though, and told me "It's a shame it's taken you so long to get to this point. If this is what you mean, I think it's too bad you wasted a lot of time and effort throwing yourself into something that was a dead end, if you're not going to pursue it, if you're not going to use those skills." And that kinda touched a nerve, because it echoes how I felt about my own knowledge of computers, all my male experience, just being packed away until I can get my body back.

I backtracked a bit with a half-hearted attempt to suggest that "I might come back to it later" (after everyone gets their proper bodies back... assuming that even happens, which it bloody well better.) She shrugged at this and simply apologized for making such a big deal, that she only really wanted to save "a few bucks," and really it was all up to me what I do with my life... something I am learning is, and isn't true. After all, right now, it's up to me what I do with Tori's life, that's for sure, but my own fate is not in my hands. I could ignore Tori's wishes for me (and she hasn't made any explicit ones) just as easily as Willy could ignore mine. I'll consider my options, as soon as I get some.

I made it through the holidays with a lot of advice from Tori. I like giving gifts. A lot of the time my friends consider me a cheap guy, but at Christmas and Birthdays, if I really care about someone, I like to give. I definitely wanted to give to Tori's family enough to rest my soul from having been a bit of a burden over the last several months. She gave me some good ideas what kinds of things Mr. & Mrs. P liked (make-up for the mom, gadgets for the dad, the latter of which I was more able to come up with ideas.) She was a little unsure what to do for Mae, and I suspect I am getting to know her better than she ever did, because off the top of my head I could think of four or five albums and DVDs she had expressed interest in. Tori was very explicit what to get for her older brother Ken: a very particular bottle of wine.

I think I've only mentioned Ken once since I've been here. He's a few years older than Tori (I think about 25 or 26) and they apparently have a very warm big brother-little sister relationship, in contrast to her original relationship to her younger sister. Despite this, he's busy with his own life - he lives in New York with his girlfriend - and I haven't tried to talk to him, and he's made a few attempts to talk to me that I've only been able to respond briefly to. When I got back from Thanksgiving, Mrs. Pearce told me that "Ken had missed me." It seemed like he had been genuinely disappointed to miss his sister, which I found sweet. There's a fair bit about him in the diaries, mostly about amusement park trips and movies they go see. Bonding-type things.

For Christmas, we were all going over to Mr. Pearce's brother's place. They have younger kids, so they're deep in the thick of Christmas madness; they're also a lot better off than Tori's family, too, much nicer house, a good space to host a big family gathering. there were way too many relatives there for me to keep track of. I mostly kept to myself, and when Ken arrived, he ended up taking most of my time anyway, thankfully.

When we got there, Ken came and wrapped an arm around me, saying "Hey kiddo." I smiled and hugged him back, even though this was the first time I'd met him. He's one of the consistently positive presences in Tori's diaries, so I felt a weird sort of attachment to him already. He took me down to the basement where there was a pool table. He set up the balls and began to ask about my life.

I told him there wasn't much to tell. Trying to figure out my next step, working a crappy job in the meantime, staying out of "mom and dad's" way.

"Listen, I know it's been a while since we've talked and all," he says, "I guess that's as much my fault as yours... mom told me you're not seeing anyone lately."

"Nope," I say bashfully, "Not lately."

It's not hard to understand why that may have surprised Ken. I've gotten halfway through the tenth grade in Tori's diaries, and she's already on her third boyfriend, not including casual "dates."

Ken looked over at me, approvingly. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it's good to be alone sometimes. It shows you who you really are."

"True," I agreed, lining up my shot, "But I'm starting to get tired to trying to know myself." He laughed as I missed my shot completely.

"Haha, see? you're a totally different person. You used to be a lot better at this."

In my head there's a whole other conversation where I say "Give my a break, my tits are in the way," but I've learned not to comment on anything that, as Cliff, would've been weird in the last few months. Besides, they're not really, I'm just that bad. This all continued, and we kept making conversation. I've long since grown accustomed to people who know "me" better than I know "myself," but Ken seems always to have full access to Tori that nobody else did. I felt weirdly comfortable just hanging out with him. Short of telling him the Inn story, I probably could've told him anything. I haven't felt this secure around anyone except maybe Alia, and even then, there are limitations.

He asked about Mae, saying "I know you guys have never really gotten along." I told him things had gotten a lot better.

That was the other big thing. The night before, after Christmas Eve dinner, Mae went off on her own with her little boyfriend Ed. Nothing unusual about this, as she often steals away to hang out with him in the evening. She came home late, as is usually the case, and I was the only one up, just hanging out watching TV. She was kind of spaced out and she just came and sat next to me on the couch. Without looking over, she said in a hushed voice, "So... I did it. With Ed. It was like, our Christmas gift to each other." Then she turned to me to search my face for a reaction.

I was pretty stone-faced. To be honest, I assumed she had already gone through with it, so my face probably didn't show much surprise. What did surprise me was that she even bothered to tell me right away.

So I asked, "How was it?"

She shrugged, "It was cool, I guess. I dunno if I like him that much anymore though. Maybe I was just using him, or whatever. I guess we'll keep doing it until we get sick of it."

I didn't know what else to say "Sounds like a plan, I guess..."

We sat there for a little while, I wasn't sure how to respond, she wasn't sure what else to say, so she added, "I just needed to say it out loud to someone. I think if I told my friends, they'd make fun of me for being the first to do it. And they don't like Ed, I think. Thanks for listening." And then she went to bed.

"Aw, I didn't need to hear that," he laughed to himself embarrassed. "It's one thing if you talk about your sex life, we grew up together... Mae's just a kid!"

"Well, she's growing up," I smirked, watching him sink another ball.

"Yeah, well, she's still my baby sister," he said, still with a hint of humor,

"And what does that make me?"

He missed his next shot, "You're the one I still have to tell my friends you're off-limits."

I took my shot, finally sinking one, "Always looking out for me, Ken."

"You know it, kiddo." He patted my head and we finished the game. Like I said, I felt the weird ability to be familiar with him, maybe because I was picking up on his way of dealing with his sister. I've gotten really good at interpreting how to act around people I barely know. Six or seven months ago, I would have found it awkward just to talk to strangers, unless I was putting on a lame attempt to hit on a girl.

I like Ken. He seems to genuinely care about his sisters, and he's the first person I've met who isn't either a guy who sees me as a potential sex partner, a girl who sees me as a bitch, or a family member who seems burdened by me. I felt more like myself than I have in a while.

Before we went back upstairs, he told me that when he and his girlfriend got home, he was going to propose, and he hoped I was okay with that. I found it nice he cared about his sister's opinion so much. If I had to guess, I'd think that there was probably some unspoken resentment between her and Tori, because that seems like the pattern that I've kept finding since stepping into Tori's life. I told him "You've gotta do what you've gotta do."

At the end of the night, after dinner and everything else, we parted ways. He hugged me with his big broad arms and shoulders and told me to stay in touch. I told him I'd try. And I meant it.

Cliff/Tori: Appearances

I've spent a lot of this weekend holed up in my room reading Tori's old diaries, among other things. I've kind of been hiding from Tori's mom, of all people, because we had a bit of a fight.

I obviously don't think of her as my mom, even though I have to act like she is. She's very different from my mom. Mrs. Pearce is quite up-front about her feelings whereas my mom is kind of a passive-aggressive type... maybe it's not fair to say that about my mom to a bunch of people who don't know her, but if she doesn't like something she'll never confront it, just pick away at it and repress her feelings rather than make a scene. Sometimes I'm like that. It probably has to do with why it took me so long to terms with my current womanhood, (as much as I have.)

Mrs. Pearce is always talking about what she likes and what she doesn't like, in a very non-judgmental way. I actually kind of like her better than my mom, in that way. Mom never admitted it, but I could tell she saw the paths my brother's life and my life took, and picked which one she was proud of (he's an athlete and soldier, I was an asthmatic computer nerd. Not a hard choice.)

Anyway. Tori's mom and I generally get along and I do my best not to ruffle feathers with any of them. I look at it like being in a new workplace - as an outsider of sorts, I have to do my best to get along with these people, no matter their expectations of me. I have tried to be a very minor irritant during my time here, which is probably not how most people act around their families. Most people are not afraid of irritating their families at all.

So to the extent Mrs. Pearce and I have been in each others' lives, we've gotten along well, and she seems to really like her older daughter despite the fact that she left her job as a stylist and moved back home before having her body taken over by a man. I asked her if it bothered her that I had moved back in, and she said no, as long as I was working, but very matter-of-factly said, "It had better not be permanent, dear." Fair enough, I say!

So we get along well but I don't really know her, I just try to stay out of her way. Then on Saturday she tells me she's thinking about changing her hair color and would I mind doing it for free? And we could bond and stuff. Obviously that was Tori's thing, but what am I supposed to do? I can, and have, faked a lot over the last few months... sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but this is obviously something I don't want to try, so I tell her I can't, but I guess I couldn't give a good reason why not, so she unleashes all this ranting on me about how it's bullshit that "Tori" wasted all this time and money on beauty school and gave up on it so quickly and won't even help out her own mother, and she feels like she doesn't know "me" anymore, and, well, obviously I am just not her favorite person anymore. And it didn't help my situation that I was menstrual-cramping something awful at the time, so my baser instincts got ahold of me and I actually felt the need to get some stuff off my own chest, (stuff that mostly had nothing to do with her and I couldn't explain in a short amount of time, about my real life, my current life, my sexuality, my job, etc etc.) even though that's exactly the kind of thing I had avoided doing this whole time... I guess bottling up all my frustration doesn't help.

So I ran upstairs and shut myself in my room and started reading the diaries again. I mentioned some references to her little friend, Danny, a boy she obviously liked. As middle school gave way to high school he's still around, and yet Tori has started dating older boys instead of him. Funny how entire threads of our lives can be pulled out of place. She never explains whether she admitted her feelings for him, not yet anyway. And when she talks about these other boys she goes out with it's not with the same language and enthusiasm and passion as she wrote about Danny. I can see her starting to get shaped into the girl she ended up becoming. Sara has been referenced only as a vague acquaintance, Raine hasn't yet appeared.

She talks about her looks a lot, going back and forth about whether she thinks she's attractive. I guess that's the kind of insecurity a lot of teenage girls go through.

Let me tell you, being in Tori's body has made me appreciate a lot of things about a woman's body. Call me a caveman, but I guess before I was a woman I often just saw women as pretty faces and nice boobs. Typical superficial stuff. I've learned so much as I've gotten more and more accustomed to the face in the mirror. The way my eyelashes curl, the way my chin comes to a subtle little curve, my cute little ears... the curve of my hips and legs, the way I look in a set of bra and panties and the way my stomach just drops right down without a bulge, curving just at the top of the panties because hey I'm thin but I'm no skeleton... so many little details I never would've noticed if I hadn't had time to examine. I don't know. I wonder if she ever thought of herself that way. I know she didn't when she was 15, getting awkward, desperately watching her weight, nervous about her boobs... she wrote a whole paragraph about how she hates the way her nose sticks out, but you know what? I like her nose, too. It gives her face character.

I guess I can see why that would lead someone to obsess about beauty and go into it for a living... always judging and comparing herself to the other girls... but I wish she had someone like me who could tell her how beautiful she is just the way she is.

But hey, this is coming from a guy who hasn't been past second-base in about three years, not including with himself...

Greg/Priya: Vacation time and Chain Links

So its been a relatively long time since I posted, and thats only partially due to the content of my last post. I mean, at the time it seemed like a good idea but as time wore on I kinda got embarrassed by it, although im not the first guy turned girl to talk about that on this blog. Anyway Im over it.

The main reason I havent posted was that the last month or so has been a busy time for teachers. I have to fill out state required progress reports for each of my students and assess their developmental levels. This is actually a lot harder for Kindergartners because I dont give them tests. This is why elementary education requires a specific degree and not just any bachelors. This stuff is also pretty important, a bad evaluation here could put a kid on a wrong educational track that could do irreparable damage. I found myself digging through Priya's old textbooks and calling her at all hours of the night to ask questions as I checked and double checked it for each students report. Finally I was comfortable enough to submit them.

So now I find myself on a Tuesday afternoon with nothing to do, because one of the greatest things about being a teacher is the vacations. Its not just the 3 months in summer that allow you to do things like go to Maine and have your identity shifted, but its also 3 whole weeks for Christmas. (Officially its called winter break, because Christmas Vacation is politically incorrect).

Thats why Im siting alone in my apartment on a Tuesday afternoon, because all of my non teacher friends are at work. Its a great time to catch up on blogging too. I think I would go insane after two weeks of this, but fortunately a bunch of other teachers and I are going snowboarding in Denver, and we leave tomorrow. Im not really close to any of Priya's teacher friends, but I can fake it, because they bought the tickets back in May and besides, I LOVE snowboarding.

The best part about having some time off is that It gives me time to work on my plan to stop being Priya. After reading some other posts it hit me like a ton of brick that Ive been in this body for almost 6 months now. Ive been taking it one day at a time and those days have added up. I might just make this.

Anyway, early January is when the Trading Post Inn starts taking reservations for next year. But before I can do that, Ive got to figure out how long a chain to make. Ideally, you could have the last person who stayed there in the fall be the first person to stay there in the summer (Like Brandon did) and they would turn back into themselves. You could then work backwards and put people back where they belong until everything is right. This is impossible due to deaths, people getting lost, and body theft like that guy who made Art into Penny. Either way everyone deserves a shot at their body back so I'm taking the next few weeks to form a chain and make the reservations in that order.

So far all i know is this:

My old body is in another part of town, with Dee inside of it pretending it to me

My new body's real owner is in New Jersey, pretending to be Emily David.

Who is in the real Dee or where the real Emily is I don't know, but im gonna try to help find out, and then find their correct body, and so on and so on until we get a break in the chain.

Im gonna take my laptop to Denver in case i get an email so Ill probably do an entry from there.

Ill keep you posted

Greg

Cliff/Tori: Lady friends

It's funny how I think of Sara and Raine, and to a lesser extent Sara's boyfriend/my co-worker Thom, our co-worker Cyndi, and her boyfriend Leo, as my friends. They're not really my friends, they're Tori's. They are only interested in my because of Tori, they know more about Tori than I do, or at least, a certain side of her. But as awkward as it can be to just insinuate yourself into someone else's group of friends, knowing they believe they've known me for years has made it easier to go along with it.

Alia and I have actually gotten quite close, since we know more about our "real-selves" than anyone else around, we can relate. But the time I can spend with him are limited, since he's teaching during the day and I'm often at work and then when I get home I'm tired, or I'm hanging out with Tori's friends. We do chat, though. He's been helping me with some girl-stuff.

I have my anti-social moments, times when I don't even feel like pretending. Sometimes it feels like the hardest thing in the world to put up with "my friends," sometimes it feels easy. Without them I'm just a girl who goes to work every day, comes home and reads, eats and sleeps. And sometimes blogs.

I'm being more and more myself around them, or as much as myself as I can be with girl-parts. They seem to be accepting the "new Tori" to some degree. Raine asked me why I wasn't interested in guys lately. I squirmed in my seat, having sudden flashbacks to Willy's hands on my thigh and butt in Buffalo, and I blurted something about being tired of them, but if I meet somebody, who knows.

The thing is, I half meant it. Who knows? That's a question that I keep putting to myself. I used to really like girls. I don't have the time or the effort to put into finding a girl who likes girls, and I would feel too awkward about it, especially if she had a negative opinion of men. I don't know, I don't think I've ever known a lesbian. And I don't feel like one, not after Buffalo.

It's just funny, I guess - and a few months ago I would've found it totally Earth-shattering, but now I just accept the fact that I haven't even realized all the ways in which the Inn has changed me. Now that I've withstood the last 6 months or so (wow!) I feel like I'm ready for anything. And I say "who knows" what might come my way.

That's not to say I'm suddenly... what's the word... man-crazy? I haven't felt attracted to anyone, male or female, the way I was attracted to "Willy/Cliff." I don't feel the great need to share my life with some guy, or even a girl, because of how much it would complicate things, but I feel like if I wanted to... maybe I could.

I don't know, it's embarrassing, and I'm not totally sure what I'm saying. It wouldn't have been right to stay with in Buffalo with Willy, that would've been weird, but it was nice to feel something for someone. So I'm keeping an open mind.

It reminds me of my early years, those pre-teen days when you just start to realize you're attracted to girls, when the innocent interactions you might have had with girls become less and less innocent... and it was my inability to deal with that that led to a lot of embarrassment. Some people got over it quick, I didn't. Maybe this is my second chance. Reading similar passages of Tori's diaries has put me in that state of mind. Maybe I just want a more innocent type of relationship. With a guy or a girl. Wherever I might find it.

Raine, on the other hand, wants to get laid. Badly. It's a little unnerving to me how much of herself she throws into picking up boys. She's quite smart and self-confident, and you'd think she would be more independent, yet she complains on and on about it. The funny thing is, she puts herself out there desperately, which is certain to attract creeps, when she complains she can't meet a nice guy. She's never going to meet a nice boy that way.

Sara, oddly enough, approves of the fact that I'm staying single -- I think she's seen Tori waste too much of her time with losers. It's nice to feel cared for.

But hopefully, in 6 months time, this will all just be a crazy dream... so who knows?

Alia/Rob: Follow-ups

I feel like I don't spend enough time on this blog actually talking about my life as Rob. Especially re-reading my last post which was more or less a therapy session.

I know there are some people reading this; maybe even more than those who reply, including fellow "victims" (such a negative term.) If you have any questions about me or Rob's life, or just any Inn-related topic that I might be able to address, feel free to comment and I will be glad to discuss it (or explain why I might not want to discuss it, haha.) I know there's an "official" e-mail address on the corner here but I don't personally have access to it... so if you need to contact me and don't feel comfortable using the comments section, feel free to do so at alia.rob[at]hotmail.com -- an account I set up just for this.

-A/R

Alia/Rob: Common Sense has no place in this

I feel like, if I hadn't become Rob, or somebody like him, (but still went to the Inn) I would've completely lost myself by now. I am able to get up the morning and go do something and focus on it, and it has nothing to do with me or my transformation, it's just a job. At times a frustrating job, at times a somewhat rewarding one, but definitely something to occupy my mind. When I get home, I'm at ease, I'm usually marking homework or relaxing, and there honestly isn't a lot of time for me to worry about Inn-matters.

I think December is that sweet spot, for me, anyway, where I'm really used to being Rob, no longer utterly freaked out or repulsed by it, but I haven't made the plans to get my body back, which Todd keeps reminding me will be soon.

I think about the way Todd has described his time as Anne-Marie, the poor guy sitting around a nice big house (probably feeling guilty about it) with nothing to do but sit and think about being a woman. Or Bryan, a guy I try to imagine in the face of many 14-year-old girls I see in my classes, and when I do so, it makes me laugh from the sheer awkwardness of the notion.

I asked Todd what he really felt about having sex with Hal. He's always been very vocal about his idea that sex and love are different. I never totally bought it, because for a long time I had only ever had sex with him, and only loved him. And maybe they're not the same thing, but when you have sex with someone you love, it's different.

He gave me a bunch of reasons why he did it. Curiosity, pleasure, convenience, pressure. Curiosity, I buy for the first time. He's never had anything particularly good to say about the pleasure he may have felt, which makes one wonder why he kept doing. Convenience, I buy -- there must've been something very appealing to him about being able to get it whenever he wanted it. I wasn't terribly guilty of turning him down during our time together, but let's just say there were times when he knew not to ask.

When I asked him what he meant by "pressure," he told me that after a few months, after he got used to being someone's "wife," he thought he was obligated to... keep things going. The remarkable thing I find about his story is that it was the real Anne-Marie who insisted he go through with it, to keep the continuity of their sex life intact and not disrupt things. The idea that her husband was effectively banging another woman did not seem to bother her, from what I've heard, because the other woman was her.

I asked him on a scale of one to ten to rate how sexually attractive he found Hal. He said "point five. I'm attracted to women, but I thought he was a nice guy and Anne-Marie's body was rigged to go with it." There are forces beyond our understanding that compel us in these situations. When you're a man, you will fuck virtually any woman who can get you hard. When you're a woman... it's a bit more complicated.

So he told me he looked at it as masturbation. The penis was his, he just didn't have access to it as often as he used to. Interesting way to think of marriage.

We talk about sex a lot, as you can tell. I want to ask him about the cooking and cleaning and taking care of the kids but for whatever reason I have an even harder time dealing with that idea. He has more frame of reference to deal with sex. That's just him.

He is of the opinion that I should pursue Ingrid. Maybe he wants to justify what he did with Hal or what he did with Donna by seeing me through the same situation. I've forgiven him, for whatever reason, we're in a situation where it feels like the normal standards shouldn't apply, and when they did I did some very wrong things so all my guilt has come back to me.

Ingrid seems to me to be a perfectly interesting woman, and maybe in another life I'd allow myself, as a man, to be attracted to her. And if she were a (decent-looking) man, she'd certainly inspire some guilty feelings in Alia. She's mature and smart, but has a clever, subtle sense of humour. But she can be very cold.

I have a feeling she wasn't meant for a meat-and-potatoes guy like Rob. and if I pursue her, then when I go back to my life, and Rob Garcia presumably takes his back, I am setting them up for more failure and I can't let myself be responsible for that.

Early in the archives, I read about Art/Liz's two suitors and him permitting himself ot fill Liz's role with them as a way of not screwing up her life. And that's the same as what happened with Todd... but that's not me, that's not Rob. Rob is just a guy who teaches by day, and goes home and tries not to think too hard about how he is really a woman named Alia by night.

And if I'm being honest, that's about the loneliest I've ever felt, realizing that just now.

Using common sense, I should probably just stay lonely, stay the course. But every so often my vision drifts over to the bikini calendar that I have left on July the way I found it, and I wonder how long it's gonna be before I go ahead and do something stupid for myself.

In happier news...

I was rather surprised to hear that, in the 21st century, a high school is not too timid just to throw a Christmas party. Granted, I'm talking about the faculty party, not anything that might involve the students and therefore potentially-oversensitive mothers. I mean, look at me -- I was raised half-brown and I love Christmas.

We're doing a Secret Santa exchange. I got Dean, which is fairly lucky since he's a friend of mine, but also I'm having some trouble with it. I simply have no clue what to buy a man. Most of the gifts I ever bought Todd were a) relationship gifts, or b) because I knew his very particular tastes. Dean, I don't know nearly well enough, and I'm guessing some guys might be prone to analyzing gifts given to them by other men.

(And so what if I did want to sleep with Dean? He's handsome in a creepy-nearly-middle age way.)

Maybe I'll just get him beer.

The semester is winding down and I'm going to have a lot of marking to do, so if you don't hear from me until after Christmas, I'll try not to freak out and go on a screwing-spree.

Happy holidays
-Aliarob

Todd: When the Levee Breaks...

Everybody lies, you know. I've thought this for a long time, and I definitely thought about it when I was Anne-Marie. So I probably had a bit of a screwy facial expression when I read Cliff's post about Thanksgiving where he said he tries not to lie to you people. It amused me a bit. Maybe he doesn't think he''s lying, maybe he's trying not to.

Maybe I'm just a suspicious person. Maybe I'm just exhausted from the last few months of mental self-abuse. I haven't been on here in a long while, definitely my longest absence since I started on here last October. At a certain point you gt tired of thinking about the Inn. Plus, I have Alia (don't I?) and we talk about her experience. We talk about it a lot. In a perverse way, it's become sort of a bonding thing. Penises and vaginas for both of us. We have little disagreements about whose situation is better or worse. It's cute in a gender-fucked sort of way.

By and large I have tried to leave Connecticut in Connecticut. I work a stupid job that I had in University and am well-overqualified for (stooging for a CD/DVD store in Toronto) and when I do so I turn off my brain, much the same way as I found myself doing when I had to be Wife/Mother Anne-Marie. I try to offer my advice to my compatriots when I can, but I usually find myself at a loss. A lot of the time I appear offline on MSN so that nobody asks me about it. Alia knows this and accepts it, or she's lying and thinks I'm being a jerk.

Bry takes this to an even greater degree than I have. Even though it's hardly his dream-job, he's thrown himself into his photography gig. He keeps an eye on Crystal, [NOTE: in the first draft of this entry I referred to her as "Alia." Freaky.] we don't hang out with her too much and Bry's been scarce too. For the most part, Inn-related matters are off the table with him. I wondered for a while whether that means he's dealing with it better than me, or worse. Shellshock. Ever read any Hemingway? Check out "Soldier's Home" from In Our Time. Sometimes it's like that. Maybe not so dramatic.

I still have a life and on the odd night when I'm not exhausted I go out. But I'm limited because I don't really wanna talk to girls and I'm not usually with Bry or Crystal. It freaks me out when I am with her because even though I knew from the start she's not really Alia, she has become so at-ease in Alia's skin that it makes me uncomfortable. She doesn't seem to doubt her identity much, confidently does things I told her Alia wouldn't. Drinks things she wouldn't dances like she wouldn't. Sings like she wouldn't. Very nice voice, even though Alia couldn't carry a tune to save her life. I remember playing Rock Band with the kids on Christmas...

After rescheduling plans repeatedly, Bry and I decided to hang out on Saturday night. We went to a strip club. A nice one, of the variety we wouldn't have been able to afford a few years ago. He's being well-paid and took me, I guess, as a treat to his neglected pal. I didn't know why, I never liked those places even before I had been a woman. Talk about lying. The simulation of sex without any intention or feeling of sex. i have fucked many a girl in my day without being in love with her, but to instill those feelings in a dude just to get his money... seemed so wrong to me. Now I think of myself handling Hal Adkisson's penis. "Wake up buddy, let's go for a ride."

That said, I think I get strippers. They've got to get paid like anyone else, they provide a service, a fantasy. There's definitely a market for it, but I was never a part of it. With or without Alia, I usually had someone who was willing to get naked for me, and go a lot further than a lapdance.

I wanted to ask Bryan how, after being who we'd been, seeing and living what we had, he could bring me to a place like that, but that's just Bryan. The one thing you can say about him is that he's got a very healthy love of the female body, not the least was demonstrated during his lesbian phase. We sat at a table away from the stage. Topless waitresses mingled with customers. A blonde took our drink orders. I thought of my fingers running over Anne-Marie's nipples during a private moment.

I've been living like a monk since July, since the incident with Donna. This is my second-longest period of inactivity, right behind the span between July 2008 and January 2009 when I was far from enthusiastic about getting fucked. By the end of this one, I expect it to be far longer than that one. Onstage, women writhe half-nakedly and the thought of having sex with one of them is both appealing and gravely disturbing to me. Didn't stop me from getting hard, though. I'm still a man, thank God.

"I didn't bring you here to gawk, man," Bry laughs, "I brought you here to talk. nobody's going to be able to overhear us." I can barely hear him, the music is so loud, and anyone tempted to eavesdrop would be distracted by the naked girls. This is not an intimate atmosphere.

"What do you think the odds are that Crystal is lying to us?"

The thought had crossed my mind.

He explained, "I've noticed some inconsistencies in her story. She changes her age every so often. She's never shown a picture of her original self, no Facebook or anything." Not unusual for a woman of her supposed age. "No listing for her surname in Shaker Heights, Ohio, where she told us she was from. When I ask, she dodges."

I don't know what it might mean. Maybe she's just trying to build herself up (Apparently Shaker Heights is a rather wealthy area) or maybe she's hiding something. I tell him to look into it, but I'm worried what he might find. I need to know exactly what sort of person is in my girlfriend's body. She knows about the blog but as far as I can tell does not read it.

We talk some more about it and go home. I resist the urge to ask him how he's feeling because I sense that's a dead end. Instead, he asks me about Erica, my baby-mama. I tell him all my attempts to build bridges between me and them have been shot down, mainly by Sean. I suspect he is still bitter about what happened between his girlfriend and my body. It's a shame, too, because he was a pretty nice guy before we fucked each other's girlfriends. And I didn't even get to do any of the fucking.

Then he gets this faraway look in his eyes, matched with a goofy grin, and he says something I can tell he's been refining in his mind for months. "Maybe it would've been a lot less trouble if we never came back."

I nearly choked on my objection. "Guh! What??"

He laughed. "I mean, dude, if you think about it, we came back to a life that was nothing but problems for everyone. Look at you. If Deb-Todd never went back to Connecticut, Alia would still be herself."

"And I'd still be Anne-Marie! And you'd still be Ellie! And as I recall, you weren't dealing with that too well!"

He handwaved that, "I was just being a teenage girl. It happens. I would've gotten over it."

"Sure, uh huh, I believe that. You really would've stayed a girl the rest of your life?"

"Sure. I got used to it real quick--"

"Too quick."

"--I had a pussy, and I was getting pussy."

I tell him, "It wasn't that simple. You're lucky you managed to keep it hidden from Ellie's mom. She would've flipped out."

"Totally, but she was a bitch anyway. I mean, I always felt, as long as you and I had each other to hang out with, we'd be okay. but now? Dude, you never hang out, you're not yourself."

"We didn't exactly go to strip clubs when I was your aunt."

"No, but we had something, man. Now I don't even know who you are. Who are you gonna be if Alia can't come back?"

"Don't say that."

"Well, what if, huh? What if she has to stay as Rob in Philly for the rest of her life! I can't take any more of this shit. You were more yourself when you had tits than you are now. It doesn't matter if my life is awesome now - it's not, but it's okay thanks for asking - I would've stuck around Connecticut and let you be happy to be a mom instead of fucking all this shit up by messing with the natural order of things."

Well, I didn't know what to say to that. I never thought "we turn into girls" was the natural order of things, but Bry did for whatever reason.

Then he went to bed, and we haven't spoken since.

More later, though.

-Todd

Cliff/Tori: Thanksgiving Saga Part 3

I'm going to try to wrap this up quickly, because I should be getting ready for work and this story has dragged out too long anyway.

That night, I didn't really sleep that well, as you can imagine. A combination of identity confusion and potential horniness will do that. I just lay there in the dark for a while, untying the braid in my hair. Finally, when I realized I wasn't going back to sleep, I picked up one of the journals and started reading.

I got to the point where, in the eighth grade, Tori admits to her journal she has a crush on a boy she knows. She had mentioned him quite a bit earlier and it seemed like, whether she admitted it or not, there was some kind of unspoken thing. for pages and pages it goes on about what happens when they spend time together and speculation about whether or not he likes her back. It was so sweet and so innocent and made me long for those days when it was all so simple. I was tired before I got to the end of the story (if there is an end) and managed to fall asleep at 3.

However, I had to get up early the next morning because the four of us (me, Willy, Justin and Randi) were going shopping on Black Friday, at the Walden Galleria, which is of course the biggest mall around here. We decided to split up into guys and girls and meet up for lunch at the food court. Despite my desire to go with the guys, there was a very important matter I wanted to discuss with Randi.

As you can imagine it was ridiculously crowded, meaning every place we went to took way longer to deal with than usual.

She took me around to all the women's clothing places she liked. As I guy I'd be super-bored but at least as Tori I can occupy myself by trying things on if they interest me. After all, no matter what body you're in, you need clothes, and certain clothes are made for certain people. It's quite a bit like my trip with the real Tori, but Randi of course didn't know who she was really with. So I just went along with it and tried to have fun. I ended up buying only a few items for myself, and a few gifts for Mae and "mom." I also bought some trinkets for my real mom as a "thanks" for having me over.

Randi was a lot of fun to be around. I'd known her for a few months before I changed, but only as part of a couple with Justin. Obviously there wasn't much excuse for the two of us to hang out one on one. I'm a little embarrassed to admit but even in my first post here I talked about how I'd kinda had a crush on her. I mean she's beautiful, smart and funny. And she really seems to love Justin. I asked her about their relationship, things I already know ("How long have you been together, how did you meet?") but had never really heard her side of. After a while, I was able to put aside my male feelings for her, and just be her friend. It made it a lot easier to talk to her than I ever did as Cliff.

Apropos of nothing and with quite a bit of embarrassment, I asked "Hey, Randi, listen, I wanna ask you... did you ever have a lesbian experience?" Obviously she was put off by the question, and it was probably way, way too personal for someone I'd "just met" (hell, even if I was myself,) but it was my secret scheme to talk a little bit about my situation. I clarified my fictionalized version, "See, my little sister keeps bringing this girl over, and my mom thinks they might be, I don't know, together. And I never did anything like that, but I'm trying to see if it's maybe normal just to... try." Yeah, now that I write it out, it was awkward, but she handled it like a champ. I should also add that Randi is studying to be a social worker or a counselor or something, so she's maybe a little more comfortable about this sort of thing.

I added, "I know, I know, we're practically strangers, but that's kind of why I wanted to ask you. We're all girls here, aren't we?"

She smiled and said in a hushed voice, "No, yeah, it's okay. It's actually normal to have doubts about yourself. When I was a little younger, in college, I had this friend, Michelle. And neither of us had boyfriends so we spent a lot of saturday nights together in my dorm watching movies and drinking, and... I don't know why I'm telling you this, but it was pretty much a relationship."

"What, really? Did you guys ever, like, kiss and stuff?"

"Exactly. It was like a secret little affair, but we had to be alone to deal with it. And then she got a boyfriend, and I got a boyfriend, and we never talked about it again, even as our relationships came and went. For us, it was only a passing phase, but I think it's definitely healthy to explore that side of yourself."

I thought about what she was saying as it had to do with my life. It made a lot of sense.

Of course, the funny thing is, I've actually met Michelle, and when I get my body back, I probably will again. I'll have to keep an eye out for any strange behavior! Haha.

We were early for lunch so we got seats and texted the guys where to find us. While we were waiting, I was struck by an image from my past -- a girl I knew in high school and was hugely attracted to (even though she was popular and kinda dumb and bitchy, and it was never going to happen, I spent a lot of time... thinking about her.)

I was staring at her, and before long, I realized how far behind me those feelings were. I was drawn to Randi maybe a little bit because I know her and she's a nice person and yeah, she's still beautiful. But this girl, whose name I even had trouble remembering, did nothing for me.

Around that time, I realized, maybe it really isn't about liking "boys or girls," it's about liking people. I still don't know what any of it means but I feel like I made a really big step.

After regrouping and eating, we made a few more stops (I picked up some gadgetry at Best Buy for my dad, the same as I got a little something for my mom.) After we dropped Justin and Randi off, Willy and I finally talked... a little.

"Listen," he said, "I'm sorry about last night, really, I never--"

"It's okay. Really. You didn't do anything wrong."

"It's just, well... when I first saw you, Wednesday night, I didn't expect you to look so good, I guess. I think I may have gone into flirt mode, and that was unfair of me. It's just, you feel like a friend, but you're a beautiful girl if you don't mind me saying, and I've never had such a close bond with someone so quick. I guess I should be looking at you like you're just a fella, right?"

I laughed, "No, you don't have to. I haven't acted like one in a while. I mean, it's not like you hypnotized me or anything." He laughed, and I did a little too, "Look, we get along well, and I got carried away last night. You've been very good about this, Willy. And if it's possible I'd like to come back and see you, and see my friends and family again... but, I've got to work, and save money for my big trip to Maine next summer. I mean, I may be okay with this, but I'm still getting that body back one way or the other, got me?"

He smiled "Yeah, I gotcha."

We had dinner, and he peppered me with a few obvious questions about womanhood, then we watched a movie. Around 11, he drove me to the bus depot, and we hugged goodbye.

The next morning, I was back in Philly.... back in "my own bed."

I hope it makes sense to you, how this all ties into everything. I haven't got really concrete answers, and I probably won't as long as I'm Tori, but my eyes are a little more open now as to what I am to other people, and what other people are to me. So I understand a bit more about who I am now... now to read those diaries some more....