Marc/Ed: "Not her again"

Sometimes I manage to forget I'm so old.

Now, it's not easy. The world, the mirror, and my own body are full of reminders: you are not young. You don't have the energy and vitality of a 35-year-old -- and let's face it, the "value" to society. I've gotten used to the shock of seeing wrinkles, saggy jowls, and gray hair (and very little of it left.) And though my mind doesn't fully compute that I should have good eyesight, there are plenty of thirtysomethings out there with coke-bottle glasses.

But from time to time I forget that I am seen as, and supposed to behave like, an old man -- and that usually happens when I'm around Christine.

We were at lunch sometime just after the new year. We had decided on getting shawarma. I said "I love shawarma," and she ribbed me saying, "Do people your age even know what shawarma is? Is that something they had back when you were growing up during World War II?"

To which I replied, "I wasn't around during World War II... wait, was I? No, no, I'm not that old." She laughed, which is good because mentally having to remember my own age was not, in the strictest sense of the word, a joke. I had to remind myself that Ed was born in the late '40's, after the war ended.

She laughed and we continued to banter... about what it's not important, and even if I told you half of it wouldn't make sense anyway, but it was just chit-chat, and then we got to talking about serious stuff. She's got medical debts to pay off and it's not going well, and it's really putting a strain on her life and wellbeing.

I asked how much she would need to feel comfortable. She gave me a number. It didn't seem unreasonable to me. I should note that I have access to a sum of money, not Ed's, but my own that I have carried through my past few lives. It's mine to do with as I please, and sharing some with Christine, the one person who makes my time in this life more bearable, was not any kind of hardship.

She demurred, "I couldn't..."

I insisted, "You have to."

"You need it more than I do!"

"Feh, I won't be here much longer."

That briefly stopped the conversation cold, and I forgot it sounded like I meant I was going to die soon, not that I was trading this body back to its original owner.

We both got our conversational bearings again and she said "If I wasn't so afraid of onion breath, I'd kiss you!"

"Oh, I don't mind," I said reflexively -- oblivious to what seemed to be a flirtatious remark, and really just trying to make a statement about onion breath.

"I was talking about yours," she laughed, then nudged my shoulder playfully.

Eventually, after we parted ways, I thought more about that remark. I loved the idea of her liking me, but hated it in equal measure because I don't want to lead her on and make her think something is going to happen that can't happen. And probably the only reason I let it get this far is that it seemed somewhat improbable that a 52-year-old woman was going to throw herself at a 76-year-old man.

It saddens me that, for all of the obvious reasons, this can't happen. She deserves happiness, and I deserve happiness, but we can't be happy together.

But as far as the outside world is concerned there's one reason why it won't happen, and that reason is blonde, 5'4, and 44 years old.

"Not her again!" Pam shrieked into the phone when I told her that I had been out with Christine a while later.

I had brought Christine around for Christmas dinner, much to Pam's surprise, as when I said I was bringing a friend from group, she pictured someone older and possibly male. She immediately got the wrong idea -- not only that this was romantic (we both swore up and down that it wasn't) but that Christine was some kind of scam artist out to get what little money I supposedly had. This certainly didn't dispel that notion.

"What's this e-transfer for?!" she screamed -- I had to route the money through Ed's bank account to keep questions from cropping up. "I didn't even know you knew how to do e-banking! Where did you get that kind of money?" (Well, I guess I failed at keeping questions from cropping up.)

"Pam, it's my money, I'm fine, and she needs it more than I do."

She listed a litany of things I do in fact need money for, and refused to believe that my needs were taken care of.

"You do not have money to throw away on some ho-ah! I sweah, it's like you're a completely different person since mom died."

Which is true, give or take some of the timeline.

"What about repayment?" she asked, "Is she good for it?"

"It's a gift," I said. "No repayment."

She muttered some more curses into the phone and ended the call.

I sat and thought about whether Christine really was just out for money. Look, I'm not really a doddering old man who would be easy to take advantage of -- or at least, I like to think so. I'd like to think I can judge people well. But it's not like there's a lot of credibility on Christine's side for Pam, since this strange woman has seemingly just managed to extract a large chunk of her father's savings after only knowing him a few months.

But perhaps I am just too nice for my own good. Too eager to help. That's what motivated me to make a very poor decision with John last year, and now look where it's gotten me again. Like I said, it's not anything I wasn't willing to part with, but the idea that there's something disingenuous about her... that would hurt more than any financial loss.

Marc/Ed: What's best

How long has it been since I was alone? 

I was with Laura for years. Then as Chantelle, I was a single lady, but thanks to her extremely involved family I was never really alone -- they wouldn't let me.

Now, it sometimes feels like I have all the time and space in the world, and it's a little scary, even if that was what I wanted for a long time.

It isn't that Pamela, Ed's daughter, doesn't care for him. I think from her perspective she checks in often and works hard to make sure he's all right. But compared to other lives I have lived, her approach is very hands-off (this is consistent with New Englanders/Mainahs in my experience.) Even the real Ed doesn't reach out to me, preferring to not acknowledge our predicament out of a sense of privacy, rather than commiserate with someone over the fact that he is currently living as a 30-year-old Indian-American woman. And John, of course, doesn't want to talk to me much unless it's on the topic of when and how we are going back to the Inn, which I arranged as soon as I could.

I always thought I was simply a loner. Why else would I have left a lucrative job in a bustling office to drive an Uber?

But maybe I was just keeping the wrong company, and without anyone I simply feel alone. Believe it or not, being older I am okay with. If, by some mistake of fate, I was stuck as Ed forever, I would accept it, but I don't think Ed would let that happen to himself or to Cayden. I ache, my eyes strain, but otherwise I am in okay health, and if this body falls apart before my mind does, there are less deserving (or at least less-prepared) people it could happen to.

(I assure you, this post is getting better.)

But it's being unoccupied and alone that was getting to me. I felt it around the holidays, where I made token appearances with family but otherwise kept to myself... but then there was Christine.

I mentioned her in passing. We met part of the same counselling group, which I have found immensely useful to talk around my problems even if I can't say "I was a high-powered lawyer who had a nervous breakdown, then lived for several years as a girl in Albany before becoming the man you see before you." I talk about loss, I talk about Ed's late wife as code for the end of my relationship with Laura and ultimately my departure from being the person I was born as, etc etc. Mostly I stay quiet and listen, and then we play games or have a movie night.

I started seeing Christine outside of that context once the days started getting really short and cold. I came and shoveled her walk a few times, even though she insists I'm too old and frail to be doing anything of the sort (and she may have a point but my brain refuses to agree.) We have coffee now and again and she laughs in surprise about how I, in her words, don't just seem younger than myself, but younger than her ("and yet, the way you complain about grocery prices, I can tell you really are an old guy at heart." Thanks Chris.)

She's made this whole experience a little more worthwhile but I think we're kind of in a weird spot. If things were different, I might consider trying to pursue a relationship with this woman. I really do have feelings for her in a way that I haven't in a very, very long time. But even if she did return them -- and there are times I catch her looking at me and think, improbably, that that's possible -- I'm not exactly in a position to make any long-term commitments. The snow may be piled high right now, but before long spring will be here and the real Ed will return (we can only hope) and shouldn't be expected to take up someone else's fling. From what I gather of Ed, I don't think he would be all that grateful.

One thing I've learned from my experiences at the Inn is to leave well enough alone. I messed with John's life and look where it got us. The best thing for me and everyone else is to just go back to being alone -- at least for the immediate future.

-Marc/Ed

Dave/Chris: Meeting Chris and Sylvia

A few days ago, I was waiting tables in the cafe, when a couple in their 50s walked in. They had a look around the cafe and then sat down. When the man caught my attention, he called me over. He looked familiar, but it took me a moment to realise that this was the original Chris, and the woman he was with, was Sylvia. "What are you doing here?" I blurted out as soon as I recognised them "Sorry, that was rude of me. I just didn't expect you to show up here. I'm Dave, and Shane is behind the counter at the moment. It's nice to meet you in person". "Likewise", he said. "Sorry we didn't announce ourselves, but we have a few days of vacation, and decided to come here spontaneously. Come back home to some familiarity and see how you guys are doing....as us. It is strange to see yourself through someone else's eyes though." We were actually quite busy that day, and didn't have time to talk, so we decided to meet up later for dinner in an upmarket seafood restaurant that they suggested.

Shane was really stressed getting ready for that night. He complained that he didn't know what to wear. "This is where I really miss being a man. It's easy for you. Just put on a pair of pants and a shirt and you're fine. I don't know what to wear. It's a nice restaurant, and I'm still not sure what's suitable" He went back to his room, and came out again a few minutes later with a couple of dresses and a skirt and a couple of tops. "Which one should I wear?" he asked. "I spotted the blue dress he wore the first time he put on a dress and suggested that. Shane went back to his room and came out again half an hour later.  He had put on his make-up and jewellery and was wearing the blue dress with matching heels.

Dinner was interesting. I don't think I mentioned Chris and Sylvia's new names or what they do yet. They're Roger and Deborah, and both have office jobs. Roger is in middle management in a mid-size company, which Chris said was daunting at first, but that he'd managed to find his way around reasonably quickly. He said that once he realised that he could delegate most of what he didn't know, it became a question of just being organised, rather than needing too many specific skills. Deborah is in marketing, and it seemed like it's been a lot harder for Sylvia. She doesn't have the years of experience that Deborah does, and has messed a few things up. The original Deborah has told her that she loves her job, so Sylvia is now just trying very hard to not get fired before they can switch back.

Shane asked Chris about whether they had considered staying who they are, or maybe trying to find other bodies, given that he's gone from being a trans man to a biological man. "In the beginning, I really thought about it", he replied "but I quickly realised that I miss being a part of the LBGTQ+ community. It might sound strange, because for my whole life I've wanted this - to be a man, with all the right parts, but we have a life here and friends, and to be honest, I find this life dull and lonely. I wish I could keep my penis, and I think Sylvia would probably like it if I could keep it too" he said, winking at her, which made her blush "but I don't think it's worth it. Besides, we've lost about 20 years of our lives. In any case, the original Roger and Deborah want their bodies back. We'd also really like our bodies back, and would be very grateful if you help us to make that happen. We've managed to get reservations in the correct room, so we should be OK." Sylvia chimed in: "yeah, I'm a much older woman, and I don't fit in with other women 'my' age. It might also sound weird, but I really miss being bisexual. Deborah is 100% straight, and women do nothing for me now. I feel like a part of me that I liked a lot, has been ripped away. But what about you?" Chris asked Shane. "You look pretty comfortable as a woman. It's hard to believe that you were a man only a few months ago."

Shane shifted in his seat a little, adjusted his dress and recrossed his legs. "It took me a while to get past the embarassment of wearing women's clothes. At first, I felt like I was crossdressing every day, but when everyone looks at you like it's normal, and you even get a lot of compliments on your appearance, then you get over that pretty quickly. I'm looking forward to getting back, though. It takes far too long to get ready, a lot of the attention I get is too much for me, and I really hate periods. As for your sexuality...well, it's weird because I'm still attracted to women, but now I feel like I'm attracted to everyone....not everyone, literally, but you know what I mean." Sylvia looked at Shane and asked. "Obviously sexual attraction comes with your body, and that body is attracted to Chris' body. You don't have to answer, but have you two....you know, done anything about it? It would definitely be a different experience for both of you." I think both Chris and I felt equally awkward then. We admitted that we hadn't, and tried to change the subject, but the embarassment stayed with us for a while. 

For most of the rest of the meal, we chatted about fairly mundane things, but as we were getting to the end of dinner, There was something I had to ask Chris. "Aren't you worried about how Trump is taking away trans rights? I mean, as far as the government is concerned, I...and in a couple of months, you will be classed as being a woman. It scares me, and I only have to deal with it for a few more months. Do you really want to come back to that?" Chris leaned back and nodded, and said "Yes, it's a very worrying time to be trans, but I've been through worse. I don't know if I told you, but we're originally from a small town in Montana, and when we came out as gay, we were rejected by our families and lost almost all of our friends. When I came out as trans, it was even worse, and we felt like we had to move away to be happy. San Francisco seemed like the obvious place. If we can survive that, then we can survive this. With any luck, it'll be over in 4 years, and I think the Californian government will also protect us as best as they can. I love being a part of this community, and we have so many friends that I'm missing." 

After dinner we decided to go to a bar for a few drinks. It was a gay bar, and I've never been to one before, and I doubt Shane had either. I don't think I had a problem with gay or trans people in my previous life, but I was definitely ignorant. Ignorant of the hardships and challenges they face. I always wondered why you would need bars that define themselves as gay, but having gone to "regular" bars as Chris, I definitely felt safer here, even though Chris does pass quite well, apart from a few things you'd knowingly have to look for, but there's always that fear of being found out. But now, I didn't feel like I had to worry about hiding the fact that I'm a trans man. We found a table and ordered some drinks. Chris and Sylvia are actually very friendly and easy to get along with, so we stayed for a lot longer and had more to drink than we intended.

At some point, we did call it a night, and Shane and I took an Uber home. It had turned out to be both an educational and fun night, but as we walked inside Shane grabbed me and started kissing me. Between kisses, he said: "I've been thinking about what Sylvia said the whole time, about having sex with each other, and it's a huge turn on. I'm really horny." I was too, and we kept going, and we ended up in Shane's bed. I helped him take off his dress and bra, and started playing with his nipples. After a while, my hand went lower and lower, until I reached his pussy. I pulled off his panties and started to rub him around his clit. "Oh god....yes, right there" he moaned. He was very wet, and this would have been the time to fuck him. I couldn't do that, so I did the next best thing and went down on him, licking and sucking, until he tensed up. "Oh...oh...oh" he screamed. 

We lay there for a couple of minutes and caught our breaths. "OK. My turn", he said "If it's too weird or you don't like it, then we can stop at any time." I watched as he pulled down my briefs and pull out the prosthetic, and then he went to work. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that I was getting a blow job, and if I tried hard enough, I could almost imagine it. It felt a bit strange and different, but having a sexy woman between my legs, regardless of the genitals I had, was a big turn on. Shane kept going and I was getting closer and closer until I finally let out a long, loud moan, as I came. He immediately turned around and maneuvered himself into a position between my legs, where he could grind his pussy into mine. "I've always wanted to try this", he said. It was already a weird feeling that I didn't need any downtime before going again. I could feel his rubbing against my very sensitive enlarged clit, as we scissored and it didn't take long before we both came again. We held each other for a while, before we kissed again and I got up and went to bed. I lay there for a while, thinking about what we did, and whether we should have crossed this line, before drifting off to sleep.

It seems like we're making up for lost time now, because we've had sex for on each of the 3 nights since then, and last night was the first time we used some of the toys, which meant it was the first time I'd put something in my pussy. It's a weird feeling, but the nerves are all there and working. I don't get as wet as Shane - maybe due to the hormones, but with some lubricant, it feels really good. 

So it looks like our pretend relationship is turning into an actual relationship. I don't know how this will affect us when go back, but our friendship will probably never be the same again...

Jonah/Krystle: Meet the (Grand) Parents

We're pretty sure that Gabe meet my real parents at some point, but not sure exactly when, and I was half-tempted to search the blog and Facebook to find when before they arrived in New Orleans for their "vacation".  Which is to say, their time checking out Gabriel Potts to see if he's good enough for their son/daughter and making sure that I'm doing okay raising my daughter.  They've mostly accepted that in going to be Krystle for the rest of my life, but even with me having been a woman long enough for Moira to be a very happy and outgoing second-grader, they're not sure I've got the proper instincts to raise a little girl so she'll wind up in a better position than pre-Inn Krystle. 

And maybe I don't, but I'm doing okay with trial and error.  Moira is at the age where she's staying to ask questions about her biological father, even if she has more or less accepted Gabe as "Daddy:.  June doesn't seem to mind answering when she calls and sends birthday cards, but he's found a new girlfriend, and maybe nothing comes of it, but maybe he justifiably wants to look forward rather than behind, even if it hurts Moira a little.  Not that Moira is lacking for attention and support - Gabe and I volunteer for a lot at school and after, and try to be attentive parents.  Folks tell us we do well.

Still, my folks wanted to see for themselves, so they came down here on vacation and found reasons to not just have their granddaughter dropped off with them to babysit, although they did do a lot of that.  I think they kind of played the roles of people coming to see their granddaughter but not wanting to impose on their son's baby-mama a little too much - Gabe knows "Krystle" lived with them while "Jonah" traveled, so it's reasonable that we'd be close - but I'm pretty sure that it's mostly playing a part rather than rejecting me.  If anything, I think, it's about sparing themselves the incongruity of me being with Gabe even though meeting him was part of why they came.

We had a few fun evenings out - a riverboat cruise, some jazz, including Preservation Hall.  The latter is one of those things that you kind of avoid if you live somewhere because they're swamped by tourists but which you're reminded are, in fact, a lot of fun when the tourists drag you there.  They also had a lot of fun with Moira, who has picked up more French than I have but really only needs to say "bonjour!" and "merci!" to impress Mom & Dad.  It is adorable, truth be told, as has a girl who used to be such a fussy eater deciding she really likes po'boys and telling them to try one while they're shocked that I get red beans & rice with alligator sausage.

Everyone was having enough fun that it was hard for them to find time to talk to me as Jonah, so to speak.  They'd told me not to disrupt my work schedule too much when they informed me of their vacation plans, but because Gabe works remotely and actually has pretty flexible hours, there weren't any times we could exclude him until Friday morning, when he had a big end-of-week review meeting and I had a couple hours between dropping Moira off at school and the gym opening to have brunch with my parents after they checked out ofd their hotel.  I dressed up a bit for Brennan's, and while I didn't get too fancy, a silk camisole, capris, and two-inch heels must have seemed like a lot to them the way they stared.  I get it; even after almost ten years, their experience with me as a woman is mostly tomboyish outfits, what they probably think of as a costume or disguise when I was waiting tables, or really casual clothes for the busy single mom, and the idea that I might be wearing something that makes me look nice in a very feminine way without having to fool people was probably new.

Surprisingly, it was Mom who took it with good humor this time.  "My little boy, showing off his rack."

I laughed, in a bit of shock, but shrugged in a way I knew would make my breasts move a bit.  "Haven't been little or a boy in a while.  But it is kind of surprising; I feel like even five years ago, all of this was something I just kind of had to put up with in order to have brought Moira into the world and fed her and all that, and maybe it was useful to sometimes play it up because of how people react.  But at some point, I kind of liked how I looked in the mirror because it said something about me rather than because I saw the sexy girl as someone else.  You know what I mean?"

Mom nodded.  "Oh, I sure do.  Your father still probably doesn't really believe that we dress up more for our girlfriends and ourselves than boys, but you get it, don't you?"

Dad snorted before I could respond.  "Hey, I am not some caveman who think women are just here to please men.  It just seems like a lot of trouble, is all."  He paused as the waitress came over and took our orders.  "But you have landed a man, haven't you?"

I smiled.  "I have."

"And that's really what you want?  In here, and in here?"  He tapped his heart, and then, a bit more tentatively, his temple.

I took a breath, trying to figure out how to explain it, not to avoid giving offense, but so I could say what I meant without really understanding it myself.  "I mean, I don't think Gabe is just 'a man'; I think he's pretty special.  I don't know how all this works.  My friend Jordan, she really tries to figure out the biology of it and explain it to me, and sometimes knowing that the Inn changed something in my nose so it would respond more to men than women helped and sometimes it just made me feel like the Devil is using my body to tempt me into sin.  I don't really understand it, to tell you the truth.  I just know that the pieces of the world fit together a lot better around me and Gabe than me alone."

Mom nodded.  "A good man does make a lot of things easier."

"It's not just that.  I mean, when I first started trying to date guys, it was about that, realizing that America is really not set up for Black single moms and their kids, and trying to find a way to cushion the blow if something went wrong, but I actually started doing all right for myself.  Gabe just makes me feel more me, you know?  Even if that's not the me I was ten years ago."

Dad nodded, trying to process it, while Mom raised an eyebrow.  "Doesn't hurt hat he looks fine and has a good job, though, does it?"

My mouth sort of popped open and stayed that way while the waiter brought us our food.  "Oh my god - is that why you're suddenly so much more accepting of all this now?  Because I've got a good man?"

Mom looked down at her plate, avoiding eye contact.  "It's not just that, although seeing you do so well on that count makes it all a bit more real, but--"  She looked around and pulled her chair a little closer to the table and me, sort of remembering that Louisiana is the South, even if New Orleans often seems like a whole other thing.  It's just, this past year, with that lady at the Olympics and the election with all those people who call themselves Christians just being so mean about girls who started out as boys and vice versa and then looking to hurt them as soon as they could.  It made me realize where the hurt at at you choosing not to be the boy I gave birth to could lead, and, honey, you may not believe this, but I don't want to go there."  She reached across the table and took my hands.  "You've done so well, even without me helping the way I should have, and that includes Gabriel."

Dad nodded.  "I'm not going to say it doesn't sting a bit to see you embrace all this, but..."  He didn't seem to know how to end that.  "Anyway, I can't imagine changing  everything like you did, and kind of figured if you did get married, you'd still be, uh--"

I beamed.  "Wearing black instead of white?  Let me tell you, I kind of want to!  I've stood outside bridal shops and seen those things that go out to here and look like they'll tear if they even get near something with a point, and I just cannot bring myself to go in, and Gabe's family is sending me pictures of dresses with veils and trains and corsets, and sometimes insinuating that me not being gung-ho on the biggest, fanciest wedding and dress and reception is me not wanting to marry him!  Trust me, I have fantasized about whether it would be possible to use the Inn to make Gabe the bride and me the groom!"

A tut-tut-tut that I had not heard since high school came out of my Mom's mouth.  "Trust me, you do not want to miss out on being a bride!"  She looked at her watch and sighed.  "You should have told me this earlier; no time to do anything before our flight."

I quickly clicked my phone on and off to see I had about half an hour to get to work, so I signaled for the check, argued over who was paying before I got the bill, and then hugged before pointing them in the direction of the nearest taxi stand and then catching a bus.

That night, I got a text asking if it was okay if she and Momma Kamen came down in a couple weeks to help me choose a dress.  Is that something I should look forward to?

Dave/Chris General Update

I thought I should give everyone an update on what's been happening. The last time I wrote anything was for my birthday, which was 2 months ago. Before I start on any updates, I've noticed that Aiden/Emilia has started calling his (her) sons by their current names and using female pronouns. I haven't done this with Shane. Obviously, everyone else calls him Sylvia and "she", but I call him Shane, and he calls me Dave when we're alone and he hasn't asked me to change that. I think it might make things easier when we change back, and when you're talking to someone, you don't tend to use pronouns at all. This is the only place where I still call him Shane, and "Him". When I talk about him to anyone else, he's obviously Sylvia and "She". I'm not going to change that here, unless there's a reason to.

Anyway....The cafe normally shuts for a week or so over Christmas, and we saw no reason to change this while we were here. We were looking at going away somewhere, but everything was too expensive. We'd left things too late to get any sort of a bargain. "Why don't we go to Indy for Christmas?" suggested Shane. "I'd like to see how things are at home, and we don't have to pay for accommodation, and we don't have any other expenses like renting a car." It sounded like a good idea, so we looked and managed to find a decently priced flight for December 23 to Indy.

It was a strange feeling when we arrived. It's the city I grew up in and know very well, but this body has probably never been there, and nobody I know would ever guess that it's me. We went to our respective houses when we arrived, and decided to have some time for ourselves, before Shane would come to my house on Christmas day for a meal. I never had much to do with the neighbours, and I doubt they even realised that the house was unoccupied since September. It didn't look too bad. I'm sure if it had been left over summer, things would have looked a lot worse, with an overgrown garden, but over winter, not much grows. The first thing I did when I got inside was to open the fridge to get a beer. As soon as I opened it, I was hit by a disgusting smell. I hadn't really thought about it, but of course, I was expecting to only be gone for a couple of weeks, so I didn't clear anything out, and now everything in there had gone off - apart from the beer. I spent the next hour cleaning out unidentifiable mouldy containers and bought some baking soda to soak up the stench. I can't imagine how bad it would have been if we didn't come back until May. I also bought groceries for Christmas dinner. 

It was nice to feel the familiarity of home again, even though my body is quite a bit different to when I was there last, but as I sat in front of the TV, watching whatever rubbish was on, I managed to completely forget about that as well - to the extent that when I had to visit the bathroom, I stood in front of the toilet and forgot that I don't have a cock right now. That hasn't happened to me since the early days of the transformation. When I went to bed, I grabbed a pair of shorts out of my drawer and realised how big they are on me now. I still wore them, just for the familiar feeling, and it was great to be able to sleep in my own bed again.

The next day, I went to my shop. It was still locked up, and the note in the window still said that it would be reopening in late September. I updated it to say May, hoping that I hadn't lost too many customers in my absence. Then I went to one of my favourite restaurants for lunch. I was a regular there for many years, and it was an odd experience to sit there, and recognise all the staff and some of the customers that I've known for years, but for nobody to know who I was.

For Christmas, Shane came by at around lunchtime. He brought some dessert he had made the day before, and then we cooked a nice meal. I'm amazed at how well it turned out, because neither of us were very good cooks before, but working in a cafe and cooking and baking every day for a few months really improved our skills. Even though we never made a proper Christmas dinner before, cooking and baking skills are transferable, and the dinner was delicious and very filling. When we go back to our normal lives, it's something I'll take with me that will be a positive from this experience. We agreed not to get each other presents. There's the whole issue of who to get them for - would I be buying something for Shane or for Sylvia? It was just easier not to do it at all. I just enjoyed being home again, and revelling in the familiarity of it all. Over the time we were home, I spent a lot of time just walking around town, or even just staying at home. I met Shane for dinner a couple of times and we went out to a few of the bars that we used to visit.

On the last night before we flew out, we went out to a cocktail bar that I used to go to with my ex-wife. I don't know why I suggested it - maybe because I was with Shane, who happens to be a hot woman right now, and I kind of wanted to go on a date. I don't know....but while we were there, Stacey, my ex-wife walked straight past our table. She obviously didn't recognise either of us, but I watched her, and she walked to a booth, where a man she was with was waiting for her. He gave her a kiss as she sat down. We've been divorced for a few years, but it's the first time I've seen her with another man, and I felt like I'd been punched in the guts. All I could think about was that this is the guy who replaced me. He's the one who spent Christmas at my house, with my wife and my daughter. I wanted to leave, but I couldn't - I had to stay to see what was happening. Shane urged us to go somewhere else, but I wouldn't. Instead, I asked him to follow her into the bathroom the next time she went, and find out who the guy is. I know it wasn't a good idea, and Shane told me so, but I was adament, and eventually he agreed. After what seemed like hours, I saw her get up and walk past our table to get to the bathroom. Shane got up and followed her. Then he seemed to be gone for a long time before he came back, chatting with my ex, like they were best friends. "Hi I'm Stacey", she said as she got to our table. "Hi, I'm Chris", I replied, as nonchalently as I could, with my heart beating at 100 miles an hour. "Nice to meet you, Chris", she said. "You two have a good time, I have to get back to Brett." I'm glad she left when she did, because I'd already started sweating. 

"So what did she say?" I asked when Stacey was out of earshot. "Well", he started. "Firstly, I'm always amazed how easy it is to start a conversation with a woman in the bathroom, as a woman. I just told her that I liked her dress and it was like we were old friends. It's so much harder for men to start conversations." "Yeah, but what did she say?" I asked, getting impatient. "Well I found out that his name is Brett, and that they're getting married in the summer". I felt like I'd been punched in the guts even harder. "Are you sure you want me to go on?" he asked. "Yes, I need to know", I pleaded. "Well...I asked her if she'd been married before and she wasn't too complimentary about you." He continued. "What did she actually say", I asked again. "I don't think this is very helpful, and I don't know if I should tell you", he said with a concerned look. "You don't look well". "Please, I have to know", I begged. "OK. She said that you were a loser and she doesn't know what she ever saw in you, and the only good thing that came out of it was your daughter". I started to feel physically ill "Anything else?" I whispered. "No. That was it. she didn't seem too keen to keep talking about it. The rest of the conversation was just girl talk."

I had to go home. I really felt like I was going to throw up. We shared an Uber and got to my house first. I wanted Shane to come in with me. My emotions were all over the place and I wanted him to come up with me. Maybe I wanted to have sex with him...I'm not really sure. "Please stay over", I said, and grabbed his hand. He looked at me and obviously sensing what I had in mind said "No. I don't think it's a good idea. If you need to call me later, then call, and we can talk. I'll come by for breakfast tomorrow and then we can go to the airport together. But I don't think you're in a good state of mind right now"

The Uber drove off and I went inside and started to sob. I think even after the divorce, I thought that I could get somehow get back together with Stacey, or at least that we could get along well enough to spend holidays together with our daughter. I couldn't sleep that night, and the next day, Shane came over for breakfast as promised, and we got a ride to the airport to go back to San Francisco. I wasn't in the mood for talking, so it was a very quiet trip back.

Back in San Francisco, we had a low key New Years with friends of Chris and Sylvia, and the change of scenery made me feel better. I slipped back into Chris' life, and the feelings I had in Indy seemed like a lifetime away (which it kind of is). One thing I came to realise is that Chris lives a far more fulfilled life than I do. He has a wife, and a social life in a welcoming community, where he is well known and loved. I have my business, my friendship with Shane and not much else. And ever since I realised this not long after occupying this body, it's made me wonder whether I should even go back. The only thing I was holding onto was the hope that I could reunite with my family. Now that this seems impossible, I don't know what the point of going back is anymore. I can't keep this life, because I'm pretty sure that Chris and Sylvia want to come back, and in any case, I don't want to live out my life as a trans man.

I managed to get reservations for the reopening of the Inn, in the same room that we had when we were transformed, which should pretty much guarantee that we're going back to our original lives. But the question is whether I want to.

Aidan/Emilia: "Is This a Double or a Triple Life?"

I've been a bit too busy to write over the past few weeks, for maybe counter-intuitive reasons:  As expected, the retail job at the bookstore cut my hours a fair amount after Christmas, but they didn't let me go.  I was reliable enough over the holidays that they wanted to keep me on, but, obviously, there weren't going to be nearly so many hours.  So I spent my free time looking for work again, and, surprisingly, I found another job within just a couple of weeks.

The catch is:  I'm occasionally bartending, but mostly waitressing.  In a sports bar.

Well, maybe that's not a "catch", but it's obviously something I would not have been considering a couple months ago, so here we are.  I was very reluctant to consider this sort of job during my first go-around, knowing that what I make would be tied to my appearance and willingness to exploit it, even down to outright flirting, and I don't know that it's exactly growth that I'm more willing to put on a tight t-shirt and smile at guys talking to its contents rather than my face.

Which is a different set of problems than the first time I worked as a bartender.  That was when I actually was Emilia's age, rather than just looking it.  The reasons were the same - student loans and rent had to be paid and my other job wasn't full time - but most everything else was different.  The bar I worked in back then was a dive, with a 19" TV in one corner, shitty beers on draft, and not a lot of call for mixing drinks.  A lot of folks at the bar didn't really want to talk, and only a few really tipped more than the one or two spare dollars they had after settling their tab.  Sometimes you had to fight to get them in a cab at the end of the night, knowing that the cost of that was basically coming out of your tip. 

Now?  The place I'm at is nice.  Not quite such that families come for dinner and don't drink nice, but it's clean, well-lit, and we've got a whole bunch of 4K TVs tuned to various games.  All the guys want to talk to me, and being just a little bit friendly earns me more in tips than I make at the bookstore, especially when I'm behind the bar.  There are a ridiculous amount of beers on tap and in bottles, and it's rare to get someone who just wants whiskey-induced oblivion.  Also, between being in New York and how the clientele all has rideshare apps on their phones, I don't find myself fretting about whether someone I've served is going to kill a family of four on the drive home very often. 

The kids were kind of surprised that I'd go for this kind of work after New Year's, but I told them it was kind of their fault; if I could see Kutter determined to not compromise as she lived Katey's life, I could do the same - and also, for what it's worth, I kind of enjoyed talking with that hedge fund guy until I realized I was kind of trapped, and enjoyed the steakhouse on New Year's Eve.  It made me think about how I missed being in male-coded spaces, and how I've tended to cocoon myself in neutral places that sort of tilt female for the past few months:  Bookshops, markets, a gym that took pains to cater to female clients.  Even if the bar we go to for trivia is kind of bro-y, I'm there with a group of women.

Truth be told, the weirdest night there was a few days ago, when a co-worker from the bookstore showed up and saw me there, made-up, wearing that tight t-shirt and black jeans to match, and said he had to do a double-take, because I'm pretty businesslike, wearing loose outfits and light makeup when selling or restocking books.  He asked how long I'd been living a double life, and I laughed, saying at least since August, and if he saw me at home, he'd say it was at least a triple life.  He raised an eyebrow and asked if I wanted him to see me at home, and I kind of froze while trying to figure out how to say no without hurting his feelings.  Fortunately, he laughed, saying his boyfriend would kill him and I let out a sigh of relief.

(Question for the other Inn people:  I can't say I was ever really good at telling whether folks were straight, bi, gay, cis, or trans, or any of the other parts of LGBTQIA+, but I feel like I'm worse at it now.  Does your brain rewiring short-circuit that?  Does living with the kids, who are also in this situation, mess with my baseline?)

Not sure why I said that, though; I've usually got my guard up just dealing with guys who have had a few too many at this job, and have tried to be really careful about not making cute comments about who I really am all along, just because it feels like it might be off-putting and because it might be the sort of thing that trips a person up.  It actually had me a little thrown, and the kids could tell when I got home.

Rusty shrugged it off.  "So what?  I make jokes like that all the time.  Folks look at you funny, you say 'sorry, you had to be there', and you move on, having amused yourself for a couple seconds.  It's no big deal."

Kutter nodded.  "Same.  Although, the important question - is he cute?"

Rusty snort-laughed.  "Oh, man, I hadn't even thought of that angle!  Well, Dad, is he?"

I rolled my eyes.  "I dunno, maybe?  Just mostly young and, you know, gay."  I stopped and thought about it for a second.  "Nah, it's not about that at all.  I think I just worked a long shift and seeing him kind of loosened all the borders between parts of my life."  I got up from the chair where I'd been sitting and headed toward the bathroom, ready to shower and go to bed.

Honestly, I can't wait for reservations to return to the Inn to open back up in a couple days.  Too bad I'm going to have to see this guy at work before then.

-Aidan/Emilia

Daryl/Zee: New Year's Resolution/Confession

Just gonna say it:  I slept with the guy everyone warned me about, on purpose, in spite of or maybe even because of everyone warning me about him. 

I was in a bit of a funk at the end of the year; i didn't really have enough time off accrued to take any sort of Christmas vacation, but work slowed to a crawl because everyone else was making plans around the holidays.  I've made some friends in Boston, but nobody else who was also at loose ends, and I kept finding excuses not to put up a tree or decorate the apartment.  Which is fine until you wake up on the 25th with nothing to do and seriously think about calling your ex to see what he's up to. 

I didn't, but the next week was even slower, so as I sipped my hot chocolate as I wandered around the city's First Night event, I made an actual resolution:  I was not going to be J.T.'s stupid ex who constantly thought about how she gave up her entire life for a man any more.  I was gonna aggressively move on.  I actually said this aloud right before the fireworks started going off; if anyone around me had been paying attention, it would have been so cool. 

Then, a day and a half later, it was First Thursday at The Changeling.  There actually weren't many of us there, and a couple left when the infamous Lenny showed up, and by the end of the night, it was just us. 

It's been a couple months since I've posted, but Lenny stayed at the Inn a few summers ago, got turned into a black woman, but things lined up so he could go back to his real life in just a few weeks.  Since then, he's really had a thing for other Inn people, especially women who used to be men, and hooks up with a lot of them, but it never lasts and often ends badly.  Most of the sizable Boston contingent of transformees at least have a second-hand story.  I was warned.  But, as the saying goes, I wasn't looking for Mr. Right, but Mr. Right Now. 

I was a bit surprised when I actually met him; from the way everyone talked, I was expecting a twenty-something horndog who had either convinced himself that his experience had set the course of his life or learned how to work a very specific new fetish.  Instead, he's forty-ish, balding a little though in decent shape, and using reading glasses.  It's kind of cute, not in an "I'm attracted to him" way, but small and non-threatening.  Even having been warned, it made me underestimate how good his game is.  He maintains eye contact, even though I've taken off my blazer and the turtleneck underneath it's a bit tight, compliments my hair on a way that indicates he knows that it can be a bit of a challenge without underlining it, and waitress for me to bring up sports and other male-coded things without looking relieved afterward. It's better than most people who sit down next to me at a bar manage. 

Long story short, we wind up at his house.  He complains a bit about wearing a condom, but does.  The gossip about his dick isn't exaggerating, and, yeah, he absolutely comes across as someone with first-hand experience in having a clitoris; he finds my g-spot quick! He doesn't fumble around squeezing my breasts like stress balls or putting his dick anywhere i wouldn't want it.  And while it's been a while for me, I do know how to keep him hard so we can go for a long time.

Eventually, we've both climaxed and are lying on top of the sheets, sweaty, naked, and panting in a good way.  He turns and looks at me with a smile.  "That was amazing!  You were meant to be a woman, don't you think?"

I laughed a bit.  "I don't know about that.  You ask me a year ago, and I'm sure I was meant to be one specific man's, uh, life partner."  I tripped a bit there; "girlfriend" seemed insufficient, but i can't say I'd had a lot of specific fantasies of being J.T.'s wife, even by the time I got ready to propose.  "I'm kind of not doing 'meant to be' right now."  The spell broken a bit, I started picking up my clothes and getting dressed.  "Well, aside from being meant to be at work tomorrow, if you know what I mean."

I called a rideshare, got back home, and got three terrible hours of sleep, but there was barely anyone in the office to notice.  Around 11:30am, I got the first text, asking if I wanted to do something more like an actual date the next night.  I was in a call, so I ignored it, and worked through lunch.  By 3pm, there were five messages, not angry or indignant or anything, but it seemed like a lot.  I feel like I would have given a woman I liked a little space, but I was kind of worried about asking anyone if this was a red flag, because the people who wouldn't find a woman in her thirties asking this weird would be all "girl, you slept with Lenny?"

I was bored enough binging the latest season of Lioness (there are like fifteen minutes of characters you actually care about in an hour of that show) to text back, and, yeah, we wound up arranging dinner and a movie the next night.

Based on the movie and restaurant he booked, it was going to be pretty casual, so I showed up in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie.  Nothing torn up or anything - all Christmas-gift-card-new, in fact - but he raised his eyebrows. 

I tried to be playful.  "What, not what you expect from someone 'meant to be a woman'?  You didn't get to experience wearing skirts in the winter!"

He laughed, but it kind of got weird really fast, and at the end of the movie, we went for drinks, and he pointed out a couple of girls who were more dolled up for their Saturday night and said I'd look good in that or whatever, and by the end, I kind of wasn't in the mood.  I said so, he got kind of pissy about it, but ultimately I just went home.

Anyway, I actually had a busy week at work after that - quarterly planning stuff, and really wasn't looking to go out so much as go home at the end of the day, but he's kept texting me.  Even wanted to know if I was doing anything special for Martin Luther King Day, and, geez, white guys, do not ask your Black friends that.  Especially not if you're looking for a date or fun times; I actually had some 23-year-old ask at work if there were remembrances or events scheduled, and could kind of respect someone not knowing and wanting to know what kind of holiday it was for other people.  I said it wasn't exactly a day where I went to church, but I was kind of new in town and didn't know what was planned myself, and should find out for next year.

Which isn't the point so much that it was a sort of clarifying moment for how presumptuous Lenny could be and how actually dating him was going to be all sorts of uncomfortable even if he did have a certain understanding of my life that 98% of the folks I might meet didn't.  So I finally told him that this wasn't going to happen, but I was grateful for that one night.

It hasn't stopped him from texting me yet, so that's going to be a bit of a thing for a while.  But I don't regret the hook-up; I kind of needed a rebound to prove to myself that I am in fact a heterosexual girl who enjoys that rather than a guy who has spent years as various women because the girl I fell for turned out to be something else.  And also that, while I kind of hope I'll find someone I can share my whole real history with, that may not be an entirely unmixed blessing!

-Zee

Aidan/Emilia: "What, and Miss Out?"

Rusty was not exactly pleased when he got "home" Sunday night with a bag now than he left with, asked Kutter what kind of haul she had scored, and saw us gland at the ceiling and each other before a little more prodding got Kutter to blurt out what Katey's father had tried to do.  "So that's why you checked in on me and didn't say why?  I nodded.  "And you!  Why wouldn't you tell me?  The three of us promised to have each other's backs!"

"There was nothing you could do, and i handled it!'

"With booze?"

"Just beer!  Maybe a little more than usual, but i knew Dad would be home soon enough!  I'm fine!"  She rolled her eyes.   "Look, you don't have to worry about me!  You're still my kid brother even if Monica's a couple months older than Katey."  She closed the laptop she been writing one of her videos on and said she was going to work in her room. 

I'd been waking dishes, so I wiped my hands and put an arm around Rusty's shoulder.  "Hey, I'm glad you're concerned about your brother, but we've been together since she got here.  She's holding together.  Now, how about you?  It looks like you had fun."

She shrugged.  "Monica's family is nice.  Kind of on my butt - or her butt - about not having a boyfriend, but i guess she's super-picky or something.  Never really noticed on her socials, but apparently nobody lasts more than a month or so."  She laughed.  "One of the cousins suggested that maybe she was looking for a girlfriend, which freaked her dad out, but, honestly, who has time for all that in their twenties?  Go to the gym, full day of work, and then I'm supposed to shower and change and go out again?  I really don't know how you and Mom found the time!"

I laughed.  "It was less frantic then, but you find the right person, and your priorities rearrange."  I chuckled.  "But wait till we're back home."

Kutter apologized for snapping at us when she came out of her room the next day, but we both said we were fine; she'd been through a lot.  We got texts from Razzie asking if we were around for trivia, since Chandra and Lettie weren't, and said sure. 

It was a bit of a different vibe, but i think we were all feeling good about Manhattan being turned down to about 80% that night.  I did keep a bit of an eye on Kutter, but she wasn't drinking more than usual or getting terms around men or anything, which is probably better than I'd be doing in her place.

We actually squeaked out a win, which had a lot to do with only half the teams showing up, but it felt good.  Of course, it also led to the second-place team buying us a round of drinks and mentioning that the brokerage firm that they worked for was letting them throw a New Year's Eve party the next night with an open bar and a heated balcony with a view of Times Square and everything, and it would be nice if we could come and make it more fun.  Rusty immediately said that sounded amazing while I said I didn't know, lying about having a lot of invitations. 

The kids were quiet on the subject for the subway ride home and up to the apartment, but that was apparently just for appearances' sake, because as soon as we were inside, Rusty was all "i know it's not really your thing, but this is once in a lifetime chance!  New York on New Year's Eve, and did you hear the DJ they've got?  We've gotta go!'

I looked at her incredulously.  "Really?  You want to walk into a pot of entitled, coked-up finance bros less than a week after what happened to Kutter?"

Kutter raised her hands.  "Hey, don't put it on me; I think it sounds awesome."

"Really?  What if--"

Like they'd practiced it, they both reached into their handbags and pulled out spray cans of mace. 

"Since when--"

"Dad, I hand-sell soda to bodegas in some sketchy neighborhoods.  Razzie showed me where to get it after the first time someone groped me at a street fair."

"Ms. Grayson gave this to me when she told me never to be alone in a room with the nepo baby son of the founder."

I shook my head.  "Look, I can't stop you, but it seems like a really bad idea."

Rusty leaned her head back.  "That the thing, though - you can!  That guy only texted one name to be put on the list, and he didn't even ask us ours!"

Kutter nodded.  "Yeah, that thing you said Thursday about me being sexier than you was sweet and there's some truth in it, but it's not like we're talking the most mature guys around here.  And some of the ones who do know what they like do in fact go for the blonde with the big boobs."

"Yeah, and...  Wait, Dad called you sexy?"

She nodded.  "Yeah.  Maybe i needed to hear it, but it was weird."

I didn't break that night, and settled in for a nice long day of watching football when they say on either side of me with their laptops and phones so that they could share the pictures and videos of New Year's festivities from Midway to New Zealand to Australia and on every hour, as well as texts about parties they'd been invited to and how they'd be watching the ball drop on TV,  or how they weren't both invited, the guys they didn't trust who would be there, and how if they did go to Times Square, it was one of the biggest nights of the year for pickpockets, purse snatching, and even girls getting pulled into alleys and--

"Fine!  We'll go to the party!  My good, it's like I actually raised two teenage girls!"

Rusty hugged me.  "And you would have been a great girl dad!"  Then she ran to her room, and i turned to Kutter.  "You guys don't find this disturbing?"

She shrugged.  "I mean, yeah, kind of, but i just figure whatever changed the rest of our bodies also gave us the brain chemistry of straight, cisgender girls, and rolling with that beats tormenting yourself like the kids at school afraid to come out to their parents.  The Inn will change us back and we'll be straight, cis guys again."

I chuckled. "Just like riding a bike, huh?"  She said it only made sense.  "I guess.  Then again, I didn't even know the word cisgender when I was your age.  Barely know it now, so maybe I just don't have the vocabulary for this."

This thought was interrupted by Rusty rubbing out of the room with a green dress that was going to have to stretch to fit her and matching heels.  "What do you think?  I've been a little afraid to wear it out because of how tight it is on my butt, but it's not a night for subtlety."  Kutter have her a thumbs up, and i rolled my eyes. 

"Hey, guys would like dressing up more if it wasn't always made to feel like an obligation that makes you blend in rather than stand out.  Go to any museum and look at portraits of kings, military officers from 150 years ago...  Heck, weren't you alive in the 70s?"

"I was a kid!"

After that, they dragged me into Emilia's room, opened the closet, shoved the practical things I kept up front for easy access to the aside, and then Rusty's eyes went wide as he saw something silvery.  "Come on, don't you want to wear this at least once?"

I really didn't, but that hardly seemed to matter, and soon enough I was in this dress that may have had a neck clasp but was slit to the navel, splaying wide enough that a bra was out of the question and Rusty had to let me borrow some double sided tape lest my nipples jiggle free.  There were matching heels and nail polish - although Kutter looked at the state of my toenails, got a file out of the bathroom, and said they were only going to do this for me once - so I got those painted.  They had me wear the dress around the apartment and walk around to make sure I hadn't forgotten how to balance or to cross my legs in the two months since getting a job where wearing flats was not just okay, but encouraged.  After they got dress themselves, they did my makeup and put glitter in my hair.

Looking in the mirror, it wasn't just that I looked like a different person, even considering that I've gotten used to Emilia's face over the last four months or so, but I kind of felt like I was seeing these three girls the way they must have come across as a group in college:  Emilia, tall, blonde, and busty, flaunting what she's got; Monica trim, cool, and confident; Katey less glammed-up  but the softer face making her look kind of relaxed as the goofy wingman.  They/we look right as a group, even if my and the kids don't entirely map to the images.

Downtown was already kind of a mess by the time we got there around 8:30 or so - and Kutter had us use a rideshare, even though they were alarmingly expensive on NYE, but it was too cold for the amount of leg Rusty and I were showing (Kutter wore boots) and we didn't want to get mussed up on the subway  Rusty had apparently texted Razzie when I was busy being fussed with, so she was waiting for us.

The guy at the front desk of this office building looked slightly amused to be acting as a bouncer, but not exactly irritated as he was probably getting some very generous overtime.  He found Emilia's name on the list, shrugged when I said these were my friends, and pointed us to the right elevator.

We didn't immediately see the guys from trivia, but noted the weird vibe immediately: lots of guys in suits, lots of girls dressed like me, few of whom gave the impression of working in a financial firm.  I mean, yeah, appearances can be deceiving, but I know holiday-party flirting with co-workers, and this was definitely "play my cards right and I could be set for life" flirting.

At first, I spent most of my time keeping an eye on Kutter, but she didn't spend a lot of time at the bar like I feared; she was there to dance and way more comfortable doing it than I was in those shoes.  I did eventually catch up with the guy who invited us, and we danced a bit, but I was pretty terrible.  Imagine an SNL skit where a girl doesn't really know what her hips are doing and is torn between thrusting her boobs out because they're what guys are looking at and being terrified that the tape will give and that was me.  I convinced him that I was a complete nerd, and that did not seem to be what he was looking for, no matter how the girl looked.  He didn't seem to mind much when I excused myself to use the ladies' room, although I was amused to come out and see him dancing with Rusty.

I kind of figured my work there was done and found a stool at a portable bar that had been erected in a corner and asked for a bourbon.  They had the good stuff, and some senior manager noticed my good taste.

We talked for a while, and it was actually kind of nice, at first.  I don't get a chance to talk to men my real age that often, not for more than a few minutes at a time, and it was easy to fall into the right rhythms, and I didn't really think, hey, shouldn't he find it weird that this 23-year-old girl is connecting so easily with a guy twice her age? until I was another drink in and really wary about getting off the stool and walking around.  Of course, he wouldn't be - middle-aged white men making the sort of money he does kind of assume that they're the default and anyone different is strange (yeah, I'm more acutely aware of this than I used to be), and most of zoomer girls he meets have probably taken step to make themselves more appealing and ingratiating.  I was kind of looking to either side of him when I could, seeing if I could catch the kids' eyes, but they were on the other side of the patio beyond a lot of people.  I also became kind of aware that he had placed himself such that it was hard to step down and move around him, all the more so when he put his hand on my back when the countdown started and everybody had moved toward the edge of the balcony to watch the ball.

They'd gotten down to six when I heard a familiar voice say "There you are, sexy - you're about to miss it!" and when I looked up Razzie was pulling me up and pulling me across the room.  At around three, she quickly said we had to sell it right before yelling "Happy New Year!" and kissing me full on the lips.

I must have looked shocked when we disengaged, while she looked sheepish.  "I'm sorry!  This was really uncool, but he's our friend's boss, and he likes to pressure his people to give him girls' numbers, but thinks gay people are kind of gross.  Monica would have come to grab you herself, but, well, I kind of wanted to.  Kind of have for a while, but it doesn't look like you're into it."

I wasn't sure whether to protest or not - she was a good kisser and the piercing in her lip didn't feel nearly as weird as I would have thought, but, no, I really wasn't into it even though I felt like I should be.  She laughed at me still looking dumbfounded.  "Hey, it's okay, I'm not usually into Barbie dolls myself.  You just have a really unique vibe."  She laughed.  "Man, when I met you guys, I thought you were some sort of lesbian polycule, but that ain't it.  You're just really good friends, which is really cool."  We'd reached the elevators, so talking got awkward, and we were back down at the street before we knew it.  "So, uh, I should probably go.  See you at trivia!"  And with that, she was off to the nearest subway station.

Surprisingly, Rusty and Kutter were among the next group the elevator disgorged, Rusty with a smirk on her face.  "Well, that was hot!"

I groaned.  "You saw it?"

Kutter held up her phone.  "I am putting this on a memory card as soon as we get back to the apartment so I'll have it forever, even after I no longer have access to Katey's cloud storage."

"She was just trying to convince that guy I wouldn't be interested!"

Kutter put her phone away.  "Uh, would you be?"

I shook my head.  "I don't think so.  Heck, I don't think I'd do much more than, you know, hang out at the bar talking just to talk to someone if I met him as myself.  Although..."  The kids started to grin a little sarcastically, Rusty more so than Kutter.  "I mean, look, I'm not going to lie to you, when he touched my back, there was a bit of excitement about what could happen next along with the feeling that this could get out of my control, and there really wasn't with Razzie.  Maybe what you said about having these bodies' orientations and the like is true."  They seemed to consider that as we stood against the building.  Finally, I crossed my arms over all the sideboob that was getting hit by the wind.  "Whatever.  Thanks to this dress you guys insisted on, I'm freezing my tits off, so let's get home."

They agreed, and we figured we were okay with the subway this time, even if it was crowded as heck.  By the time we got to the apartment, the three or four drinks finally caught up to me, and I basically dropped on my bed in just my panties, which I never do, figuring there would be some sort of longer talk the next day, but they were gone to their jobs by the time I woke up, and then I was off to mine before they left.

Maybe there's not much to talk about - we've got the bodies of young women with standard-issue hormones, there were guys around, but what are we going to do, considering we're halfway through our time like this?  As much as there was some knee-jerk physical reaction for me, it still felt weird, and I can't imagine it not feeling weird by the time we go home.

-Aidan/Emilia

Aidan/Emilia: Hardest Moment as a Dad

I'd had vague ideas of seeing the Dylan movie after my double today - the kids roll their eyes at the trailer, because Bob Dylan is just an old weirdo to them, they imprinted on Walk Hard young and can't take any musician biography seriously, and apparently retain the teenage boy view of Timothée Chalamet as kind of too pretty and effeminate rather than swooning like young women - but the shop was nearly as crazy as the day after Thanksgiving, so I wound up just heading home with the intent of seeing if the bubble bath with a bottle of wine was all it's cracked up to be.  When I got up to the apartment, though, the light was on and Kutter was sitting cross-legged and barefoot on the couch, three empty beer bottles on the floor in front of her and a half-finished one in her hand. 

It made me stop short, some instinct telling me to give her space rather than run up to her, though I squatted to get in her eyeline.  "Hey, bud, what's wrong?"

She took a deep breath and a swig from the bottle.  "I'm pretty sure I know why Katey isn't coming back."

"Oh?"  I didn't feel a need to prompt; like with Rusty at the gym, Kutter will let worries out if you give her space and a little permission. 

And it came out.  There were already a bunch of cars in the driveway and on the curb, so the rideshare driver dropped her a couple houses down.  There was a girl about her age playing with a baby in the snow in one yard, and she lit up when she saw "Katey", picking the boy up and waving.  Katey recognized her from Instagram, and she introduced her to the kid, then expressed surprise that she was back after mostly spending the holidays at school. She said she watched all Katey's TikToks, but then lowered her voice.  "Looks like a crowded house over there.  I'm going to be here all weekend, so stop in any time you need a break. Any. Time."

Kutter thought that was odd, but maybe it was some private joke.  She took a breath and went into Katey's family home.

It was not like our Christmases; there were little kids running around, multiple people unwrapping at once rather than building suspense and asking what gave you that idea, cousins who wanted to know everything about the big city, and uncles and aunts that she did a pretty good job of pretending to know by noting anyone calling and responding to names.  Dinner was noisy chaos.  She was ready to go to sleep by ten, earning cracks about not getting much of New York's nightlife.

Around 1am, she woke up.  Katey's father was straddling her, unbuckling his pants.

"What?!"

She nodded.  "Yeah.  So, obviously, I started to scream, and he put a hand over my mouth, like, hard enough to press my head down into the mattress.  I remembered the lamp on the bedside table, and reached out for it, but he used his other hand to pin it down.  So, I figured, I don't go to the gym like you and Rusty, but I've got really bony knees, and I rammed one right into his balls as hard as I could."

I gaped at the matter-of-fact way she said that., but..  "Good for you."

"Yeah.  He fell backward, which meant he was kind of sitting on my legs and too heavy to move, so I grabbed that lamp and smashed it into the side of his head.  Twice, when it looked like he was about to punch me in the face."  She took a deep breath.  "He fell off the bed, so I jumped up and ran outside, barefoot, and banged on the next-door neighbor's door.  I kept looking over my shoulder, and I think the door to Katey's parents' house had opened by the time her friend's dad took a look at me and yanked me inside."

She looked at her beer, and put it down, thinking.  "So, obviously, this had happened before, but I'm guessing that the last time, Katey didn't say quite so plainly that her father tried to rape her, because they all kind of winced at the word.  Then they asked if I wanted to call the police, and I said what I wanted was to get the fuck back to New York and never come back there again."  She stopped and looked up at me.  "Should I have stayed and filed a report?  He deserves to go to jail, but I just wanted to run like a coward--"

"Hey."  I inched a little closer.  "Given the situation w're in, you probably did all you could do.  Just practically, by the time it were to go to trial, it would be someone else who would have to testify against him.  Plus, I looked up sex crime statistics when we first changed, and--"

She nodded.  "Yeah, so did I.  Still..."  She finished her beer.  "I just don't get it, though!  It's sick, and I'm not even sexy like you and Rusty!  Why the hell would he do this to me, or her?"  She stumbled forward and grabbed me, burying her face in my shoulder for the first time in a long time.

I let out a sigh of relief, because I had just started to figure she might be afraid of me after that.  I patted her on the back.  "Hey, I don't know, and I'm glad I don't know, and you don't know.  I'm glad the thought just doesn't enter our heads.  I don't think it's even about attraction, though.  I think he just wanted to have his daughter completely under his thumb and scared of him.  Heck, coming back for the first time in years, he probably wanted to show Katey who was boss."

I could feel her nodding, and then something struck her, and she pulled back.  "Wait, what about Katey?  Why the hell didn't she warn me about this?  Did she like it?  I mean, okay, it was scary, but the whole flight back here, I couldn't help but think how lucky I was because if he'd really wanted me unable to move, he could have, but if she didn't resist--"

"Hey.  You don't know, I don't know.  Look, think of how scared and confused you are now, and imagine, well, I don't want to say imagine it was your dad--"

"You would never!"

"Thank you.  But someone like that can tell his daughter it's normal and she'll believe him.  Maybe right up until she gets a chance to leave."  I shrugged.  "I mean, I don't know.  This is all new to me, too. Real girls would probably know better.  Or maybe not.  Shame makes people do strange things, especially when the person in question shouldn't be ashamed."

She shrugged.  "I guess.  Anyway, they offered to book me a ticket and lend me some clothes, but then I realized I had left my wallet and phone over in the bedroom, so the dad said to stay there.  I did, and about half an hour later he was back with my purse, phone, and carry-on bag.  I'm not sure how he convinced Katey's father to let him in to get them.  I had to connect in Atlanta to get back here, but I was out of that town early this morning.  Then you got in, and we're allll caught up."

She stood, grabbing her head and looking kind of dizzy.  "Whoa, I don't think I've slept or eaten anything but the beer since then.  I think I need to sleep more, though.  G'night."

I said I'd leave my door open if she needed to talk more, and she nodded.  She'd started to walk off when I said "one more thing."

She looked at me, curious, as I stood.  "Part of me wants to let that thing about how you're not sexy go, because, well, it's weird for me, and as a dad I don't necessarily want you thinking of yourself as a sexy girl, but you are.  Like, I'm not sexy like this.  I'm what guys your age, your real age, think is sexy before they've learned what they really like.  You're kind and funny and good at what you do and you seem at ease in your skin, even though it's not your skin anymore.  You're sexy as heck and you shouldn't think that's a bad thing or try to be less than you are because of one bad day."

The corners of his lips twitched upward for the first time that night.  "Uh, okay.  Thanks."  Then she turned and went to her room.

Me, I immediately texted Rusty to find out if she was all right.  She texted back a thumbs up and then a selfie of herself drinking margaritas with some of Monica's cousins.

Don't know if I'll get to sleep myself.

-Aidan/Emilia

Aidan/Emilia: Well, that was a weird Christmas

It starts with the kids and I actually kind of more in sync than most mornings - they both had to catch morning flights, so we wound up sitting around the little tree at 5am, dressed in slippers and the sweatpants and t-shirts we'd slept in.  Didn't even put on a bra, so I'm sure my nipples will be in every picture we took.  I laughed, saying that it seemed like only yesterday they were so eager to see what Santa had brought them that they got up before dawn until they became teenagers who slept in practically until noon.  Rusty said that still sounded like a great plan.

After last week's hemming and hawing, I eventually decided to get them things that would be useful now and that I could see them bringing home.  For Kutter, that was a camera and some accessories - a ring light, a gimbal stabilizer, and an external hard drive.  The camera probably wasn't much better than what she's got in her phone, but it's good to have something built for a job sometimes.  Rusty got a Blu-ray player and what the guy at the store assured me was a good starter pack of Korean movies that could be hard to find on streaming services.  This apartment actually doesn't have any device that plays discs (welcome to being a zoomer, Aidan!) and the one in the living room back home is old.

With each other, they were oddly sensible - chocolates and coffees and craft beers and bottles of hot sauce with an alarming amount of flames on the packages (Rusty, of late, has discovered that she really likes a lot of spice and heat on occasion, after she went to some local ethnic eatery and they deemed her Asian enough to handle the "real" version of a dish), stuff that they figured they would use up in the next few months even if they only had the good stuff every once in a while.  

I got some of that from them, too; ciders and the fanciest box of artisanal peanut butter cups you've ever seen (they've been buying me the tree-shaped boxes of Reese's since they were five and six, so this is a bit of an upgrade).  Kutter got me an autographed "Advanced Reading Copy" of a thriller by a favorite author that should be big next summer.  Rusty discovered that apparently Atari still exists and is selling updated versions of 30-year-old game consoles, so she got me one of those and some cartridges, which I guess means I'm not totally introducing her to the idea of physical media.

(There were also some gag gifts that I'd prefer not to discuss - what was the idea behind competing over who could get the other the most outlandish heels?)

Then Kutter beat Rusty to the shower but was quicker than usual, and soon they were dressed, made-up, and on their way out the door.  I felt like I should have accompanied them to the airport or seen them off, but it would have just been taking the subway even if one wasn't going to JFK and the other to Laguardia.  Just a reminder that I was not properly dad-ing.

Soon, though, it was my turn to shower and dress for the holiday, which I'd left in the hands of the kids, telling them this would not be a good time for pranks.  I still kind of felt like they were kidding me - candy-cane tights, a sparkly green skirt, and a sweater with a reindeer on it that didn't hide much of my figure and which didn't feel entirely appropriate for Zooming with the parents - but apparently, it was:  Emilia's mom and her little sister were wearing matching sweaters even though full breasts apparently run in the family and her sister is still a senior in high school.  When I opened the box they'd shipped, it was from Victoria's Secret and contained both flannel pajamas and some new variety of bra that Emilia's mother swears by.  I'd sent gift cards, and so had they, with a pre-loaded Visa debit card discretely slipped into a card so the little sister didn't have to see it.  We somehow managed small talk with me drawing on Facebook and "Mom" remembering what it was like to just be starting out in a new city.

The call with her father was a little different.  There was a stepmother who said hi at the start but then busied herself in the background; I gather she and Emilia never became close.  Her dad asked if I was already looking for new work since the bookstore would likely be a last-in-first-out situation, and I lied and said yes.  Lots more questions about if I was being careful in the big city, and I admit I did chuckle at one point when he used some exact words I'd spoken to Rusty & Kutter, although I bluffed and said we'd had this exact conversation at graduation when he asked what was funny.  Anyway, I'd sent him gift cards and he had done the same, plus some nice gloves that you don't have to take off to use your phone and a knit jester's hat.  He didn't feel the need to be discrete about having sent a prepaid debit card.

After that second call, I did the thing where I retreated to Emilia's room and flopped backward on her bed, feet touching the floor, and just staring at the ceiling for a bit.  I used to do it because being a girl has just been too much for me, but today it was the lying, and also something seemingly bigger than that.  The parents were my age, and Emilia's sister less than a year older than Kutter, and it was something to really do the full role-reversal; dizzyingly strange at points and all too easy at others.  It's one thing to put on a bra and work an entry-level job and scrape to pay rent but then come home and be able to be yourself with your kids (I've done some of that before and at a certain level you just accommodate your body until you can tune any signals of discomfort it's sending out), but immersing yourself in someone else's life, even for a couple of hours, is something different.

And on top of that, I knew that pretty soon, Kutter & Rusty were going to be doing it even more than I was.  Maybe better?  After a while, it led me to thinking about the guilt I'd felt about not being able to drive them to the airport earlier, and how over the past couple of months, I've slowly been relating to them more as roommates than as Dad, even with the morning's sentimental gifts, and they were about to get the better part of a week of people just relating to them as parents with their kids.  And mothers!  They would have mothers for the first time in a decade!  Two people doting on them and worrying about them that they didn't have to share with their brothers!

I don't think I quite had a panic attack, but I laid there a while.  Then, some time later, I realized I was hungry, because I hadn't actually had any breakfast and it was 1pm or so by then.

For some folks, that's bad, they'll feel like they don't deserve food or binge or the like, but it tends to hit me as "here's a problem you can deal with, so tend to that".  So I did.  I grabbed a coat, plus the gloves and hat Emilia's father had given me, and went downstairs, glad I was in New York.  Lots of places were closed, but lots of places weren't, and while they were quieter than usual, they weren't sad, empty places that reminded you that you were sad and lonely.  No, there were lots of people grabbing a slice of pizza for lunch for whatever their own reasons were and it was kind of no big deal.

Then I kept going, explored New York at Christmas.  Sure, it doesn't quite snow like it used to here, so maybe it's not the exact sort of magical that it used to be, but I only saw that in the movies and on TV, so I walked through Central Park, through Times Square, up Broadway, and every other thing Emilia's phone could find that was a noteworthy Christmas decoration.  And the thing about New York's bigness is that, while it's often annoying when you're packed into a bus or tourists are choking downtown, it can also mean that things can be done at scale.  Some of it just isn't possible anywhere else, certainly not in our suburb or the nearest city.

Of course, another part of New York is that it gets dark at 4:15 or so this time of year on top of being cold.  I decided to treat myself, found a nice steakhouse, and let them all wonder about the pretty girl having a steak, red wine, and ice cream by herself on Christmas.  Then back home and more time playing Atari than since I was eight (though we probably had a Nintendo by then).

And then, writing this, because the crazy day seemed to need summing up.  Tomorrow, back to work!

-Aidan/Emilia

Jordan/Yuan-Wei: Could Be Worse!

Hope I didn't get folks too worked up over the last post.  Anyway, Dominic had a rough night of it - compound fracture and what is apparently way more internal bleeding than you want from the femoral artery as a result.  I mean, you want none, obviously, but I feel like transfusions for "just" a broken leg is kind of alarming!

If it was alarming to me, it was absolutely panic-inducing to him, so I wound up in "reassuring girlfriend" mode the next day - no, I was not just attracted to you for your body, and it's not nearly broken enough for me to put me off, you'll heal up, and be back at risking your body/skillfully making it look like you've risked your body in a couple months - which, admittedly, is not natural to me.  I'm not a bitch, I don't think, but there's still a lot of New York asshole in me which is not exactly helpful when someone feels legitimately down or isn't used to busting your chops as meaning "see, it could be worse" rather than "it's worse than you think".  Trying to quickly think of solutions when he's down, that sort of thing.

And, like, trying to make sure he's not down for very long.  There are logistical considerations in fucking someone whose full leg is in a cast and not supposed to have any weight put on it, but we're figuring our way around them.  Purely for the purposes of making sure he knows he's no less a man in this situations, of course.

I kid, but that sort of temporary handicap is no joke, especially in a place like Hong Kong where folks often have tiny, cramped apartments and some of the elevators are like sixty years old and break down a lot.  Dominic's apartment, for example, is on the sixth floor of his building and he's often joked about the stairs being his workout.  His parents are in a high-rise whose elevator doesn't have any problems but which is just a bedroom, kitchen, living room, and bath, since they downsized after he moved out.  Which leaves me.  I don't know if I'm really rich right now - Chen-ai/Bingbing didn't exactly drain the family accounts but she sure as fuck convinced the nice lady living her life that she deserved a good chunk of it - but I've got a nice condo with a spare bedroom should we not decide to sleep in the same bed for whatever reason, and the building is relatively new and reliable.  There's the family house, but...  Well, I'm not sure what to do with it, to be honest, but that's a whole other thing.

But, yeah, Dominic is moving in, at least for the next couple of months, a lot sooner than I expected we'd be having this conversation.  We've gone over to his place and brought a lot of clothes over, and he insisted on being the one to buy a cheap bit of plastic storage to keep them in.  So far, we're not clashing too much, except over breakfast, when I am trying to get out of the habit of grabbing the closest thing Hong Kong has to a New York bagel and coffee en route to work because he'll make dim sum.  Along those lines, he and his parents are not really sure what to think about just how American the contents of my apartment are.  The place you see the most Chinese characters is one the Blu-ray shelf and the pantry, whereas my jottings on the refrigerator's notepad are all in English and so are most of the books and magazines lying around.

More than being generally Western - which isn't that big a deal; folks in this city have been using a lot of English and getting into Western things to look worldly and sophisticated for a long time, and the transition to sucking up to the Mainland instead is kind of happening slowly and reluctantly - it's my place.  Me, Jordan Chang, not Jordan Lee Yuan-Wei.  And I suspect that while that just looks eccentric to friends and lovers who pop in for a visit or stay the night, it's probably pretty fucking weird for Dominic when he's got time to settle in and look around.  Like, why does the Christmas card from a random-seeming family from New York have a place of prominence while the one from my mother (you know, Chen-ai, or the while lady posing as her) doesn't?  How would someone who went to college in Boston know this family from New York, getting all these texts at odd hours and there was a package with some Christmas presents, and do you know what it fucking costs to ship stuff internationally these days?

I'm not worried he's going to find out my secret and have some sort of gay-panic freakout; the Inn's curse kind of protects me from that, which becomes weirdly convenient once it's not the most fucking frustrating thing in the world.  But, ugh, I'm not looking forward to coming up with weird stories (which you kind of have to after the face I made when he guessed that I had dated my kid brother at some point) or pushing my original life even further into the background.  But I guess that's what you kind of have to do when your new one fills out like this.

And I guess I can; Jonah is getting married next year and seems to be making her peace with it.  I just wan't figuring on doing it the week I'm exchanging a lot of Christmas greetings with my American friends and family, is all.

-Jordo

Aidan/Emilia: Christmas Shopping

So much of it!  And not just because of all the hours I'm working at the bookshop (lots of overtime - a couple folks quit and someone chose a lousy week to have Covid)!

This is not, by the way, a "Oh, now you know what ladies go through at the holidays" thing.  I've been a single dad for over a decade managing Christmas decorations and shopping on my own, and sometimes money has been tight.  It's just figuring out what would be appropriate 

For instance, we dug through the back of various closets and found that there was a small artificial tree and a string of LED lights that Emilia had apparently bought for her dorm room or college apartment.  It's small, maybe the and a half feet tall, but so is the apartment.  We pushed the coffee table into a corner and set it up in top of that.  Kutter and Rusty are going to have to improvise foot rests for when they're gaming on the couch, but they made that sacrifice willingly. 

Decorating ours, though, was surprisingly deflating.  There are years printed on most ornaments, whether store-bought or homemade, and every year I discover anew that they can be profoundly powerful reminders of how Kutter and Rusty have grown and what has persisted, what Christmas was like for me as a kid, and remember the ones we spent as a family before losing their mother.  The various ones Emilia, Katey, and Monica have left behind mean little to us.  Maybe even less, because they were willing to abandon them. We wound up putting them back in their boxes and buying some new ones.  I went for a couple specifically featuring New York while the girls went goofy - honestly, who even puts a loop of string on a miniature pair of heels and calls that festive? - so that they would mean something later. 

It's trickier to do the same sort of thing with the actual shopping - should I be shopping for teenage boys or young women?  It doesn't seem right to look for things that they will be leaving behind in a few months - although I suppose they may be mementos of their time here - nor to get them things that won't seem relevant until May.  After all, buying teenagers something that they'll still be interested in six months from now is difficult in the best cases, and who knows how this experience will leave them changed on the other side..

Yeah, I guess I'm shopping for Katey and Monica.  Of course, there's also the question of the family living our lives now, so maybe we should be getting "Aidan", "Kutter", and "Rusty" something.  The kids and I have talked it over a bit, but we're actually having a little trouble coming up with something appropriate that we wouldn't have mentioned three months ago.  Rusty as suggested just a card involving Santa dresses and the caption "Wish You Were Here!", at least until I pointed out that the girls living their lives were also underage and that would be inappropriate on so many levels.  She still wants the picture, though.

And then, there's the big one - these girls' families.

It's the twenty-first century, so there are social media posts hinting at interests and Amazon wishlists for when you don't want to leave anything to chance.  I've been texting with Emilia's (divorced) parents to get ideas about what to get her sister and vice versa, and also to let them know that their daughter won't be able to make it home because I'm working late Christmas Eve and early on the 26th, because rent in Brooklyn is expensive.  They're disappointed, but understand.  It's kind of a relief to me, since it means that there's a good chance I'll get through this whole thing and not have to lie about who I am to their faces and think about why Emilia left them behind.

The kids aren't so lucky.

Katey and Monica were both only children, and with neither Kutter nor Rusty having taken any time off, they've got a little PTO and floating holidays that they can't roll over into next year, so there's really no excuse, especially since Monica's father already bought her a round-trip ticket.  Katey's parents haven't been quite so insistent, but they too mentioned that they haven't seen her since graduation, so she's booked a ticket herself.

On the one hand, this is logical, they answer to "Monica" and "Katey" without ever missing a beat by now, never forget themselves and do things a woman wouldn't, and they've been less timid about responding to folks who knew the originals on Facebook or the like than I am.  On the other hand, despite them working full-time jobs and not sticking to soda when we do bar trivia every Monday and regularly getting into taxis driven by strangers on their own, they're kids.  This will be their first unsupervised travel, and as pretty young women besides.  On the one hand, it probably shouldn't scare me too much - they handle the New York subway system on a daily basis, which is probably more dangerous than suburbs and regional airports, on top of being more complex.

They're not that worried about shopping, saying that whatever they get, these other parents will appreciate the thought, and vice versa.  Which, I'll admit, is true.  It still seems overwhelming to me, though.

-Aidan/Emilia

Jordan/Yuan-Wei: Too much time to think right now

I mentioned a few months ago that I was trying not to jinx something, but I guess I may as well.  His name is Dominic Wong Tak-Lok and I think I may love him.

We met on a dating app, as you do, but it actually started to take off when we crossed paths at work.  He's a guy who would be about to break big if Hong Kong's film industry was what it once was, a pretty darn good screen fighter in one of the big stunt teams who has the charisma to jump to speaking roles; he's had a couple things - mostly stuff that goes straight to the likes of iQIY - where he's a sort of featured heavy, the guy that gives the star a run for his money on the way to the big showdown with the villain and lodges himself in your memory because that guy was sort of cool.  Anyway, he was in a fantasy action thing and I came on-set to set up mo-cap when needed and show the director monster designs to make sure that there was actually room for a bulky ten-foot-tall beastie on screen.  So I was putting some dots on him, he said funny meeting you here and poured on the flirting; I wasn't seeing anyone exclusively and he was my type, so I went with it.

Not that "my type" is particularly specific:  He's tall, well-muscled but just short of the super-sculpted way that Benny says isn't achievable without risking dehydration, and gets a nice five-o'clock shadow.  Some of his family emigrated back in the 1990s, so he's spent a fair amount of time in Vancouver, which means his English is pretty good and he doesn't think I'm weird for preferring baseball to soccer, and he respects that I'm good at my job so he doesn't try to mansplain movies to me.  He's got an impressive, responsive dick.

I wasn't expecting much more than some good sex and some good times.  I've been a woman for ten years, even if I figured to become a man again during the first, and though I've had boyfriends, I really only got hurt by something ending once, and that involved a bunch of weird Chen-ai Inn Conspiracy Shit.  I kind of figured that's how it was going to be, just because of who I am.  I figure that the Inn alters the parts of your brains that control gender identity and sexual orientation but don't mess with anything that speaks to your experiences or skills (I've read so much fucking neuroscience of gender for dummies shit since becoming Yuan-Wei) and just kind of figured that who I am was kind of set by the first twenty-five years of my life, where I was overweight, angry, overlooked by girls and pissed off about it.  I kind of go into relationships expecting the collapse.  And sometimes I wonder if how I behave as the girl in a relationship is really me, or me trying to be what I wanted girls to be as a guy, or how I think girls act, or how I think girls should act.

(If a therapist went to the Inn they could make so much fucking money from zoom sessions with folks who can't tell a regular shrink why they're fucked up)

It's been really good.  We both tend to work long hours, but Hong Kong is a good city for when you're looking to have a date at 3am, and when he's not working, he's a good cook and not weird about how I make more money than him so I sometimes pay for dinner.  We go to movies and elbow each other to point out stuff that we think is kind of funny or weird from a behind-the-scenes perspective.  His family is pretty cool about me being a couple years older and doesn't talk about my eggs running out or anything.  He has yet to fail to bring me to orgasm, and all that martial-arts training seems to translate well to how I kind of like being picked up and kind of manhandled without crossing a line.  Like, he knows his own strength and that I like to feel some power without actually getting hurt.

And, right now, sitting in this hospital, I wish the stunt coordinator on his current job had been similarly committed to people not getting fucking hurt.

it's so fucking ridiculous, because I was there to make sure something like this didn't happen, helping with green-screen work so that we could put a fake cement wall in behind him so that if he didn't manage to leap onto the car's hood in time, we wouldn't be crushed between them.  We do a lot of that stuff - folks don't realize how much CGI is letting folks do practical stunts safely - but some jackass figured they could store equipment behind the green screen, and Dominic's leg got pinned.  It's a pretty gnarly fracture - they brought him into the OR rather than just setting it with a cast - and they won't let me into his room, even though I'm the one that called his parents and told them where to come.

So, yeah, maybe I'm in love.  Can't imagine I'd be this freaked out otherwise.

-Jordo