Friday, January 03, 2025

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

Friday, December 27, 2024

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

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

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

Tuesday, December 24, 2024

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

Friday, December 20, 2024

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

Wednesday, December 18, 2024

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

Sunday, December 15, 2024

Dave/Chris: Gone Fishing

It's been a little while since I've written an update here. We celebrated Thanksgiving a couple of weeks ago with Chris and Sylvia's friends, rather than any of their families. They both don't have much to do with them, because they don't approve of their "lifestyle". Everyone brought something along, and our contibution was the pecan pie. We all ate until we could eat no more, and the drinks flowed, along with the jokes and the laughter. It was actually one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.

Aside from that, there wasn't much to report. We've settled into a routine of work and home life, and it's really not that interesting. But then, it was my birthday last week. Not Chris' birthday, which is in June, but mine. It's strange to think that my body doesn't actually exist for this birthday, but that's a whole other topic. 

I've mentioned before that we used to go fishing regularly in our old lives. We've been so caught up in these new lives and routine, that we haven't gone fishing, or really done any of the things we used to do since we got here.

When I woke up, Shane was already in the kitchen, frying up bacon and eggs as a birthday treat. "You'll get your present after breakfast", he said, and once we were done, disappeared to his room. A few minutes later, he came out with fishing rods and a tackle box. "Cindy and Craig are working today", he announced "We have the day off and we're going fishing".

We got lucky with the weather, it was in the mid-60s, which is quite good for this time of the year, so we headed off to a local lake, where Shane had rented a boat. It's the off-season for fishing, and it was the middle of the week, so we had the lake to ourselves. Shane had packed lunch and a few beers, and once we'd cast our lines, it really seemed like old times. We didn't talk much, and even though we also didn't catch much, it was a very relaxing day.

We got home in the late afternoon, and Shane told me that we were also going to dinner and a comedy show, so we got changed, went out, and had a fun night.

In the Uber on the way home, I gave him a hug - which was quite awkward, because we were sitting in the back of a car, wearing seatbelts, and I thanked him for what he'd done for my birthday. it really meant a lot. He looked at me, seemed to be in deep thought for a few seconds, and then he said "fuck it", put his hand at the back of my head, pulled me in and started kissing me. I was stunned at first, but then kissed him back, and we made out for the rest of the way home.

We were interrupted by the Uber driver telling us that we'd arrived, and I thought the moment had passed. But once we walked in the door, Shane grabbed me and started kissing me again. we moved to the couch, and he took off his top, revealing a lacy red bra. I took it off and started playing with his tits. He fumbled with the buttons on my shirt, and grabbed my hand and guided it up under his skirt. I could feel the dampness through his panties and nylons. He moaned and started to unbutton my slacks, which immediately made me come to my senses. I pushed him away, and asked him to stop. "I'm sorry" I said, "I can't do this". I was suddenly super aware of the fact that I don't have a cock, and that I was making out with my best buddy. "It's alright", he said, "I want this", and reached for my trousers again. "I can't, I'm sorry", I repeated. I got up, and told him I had to go to bed. "Thanks for organising all this for my birthday. I'll see you in the morning". I him left sitting on the couch, hair tussled and topless.

When I got into bed, I couldn't sleep. I kept replaying what had happened over and over again, and it didn't help that I felt really turned on. After maybe an hour, I started to hear faint female moans, and it took me a moment to realise that it was Shane in the next room. There are no prizes for guessing what he was up to, and it just turned me on even more. Finally, I stuck my hands into my shorts. My pussy wasn't exactly gushing, but it was undeniably wet. I started stroking my clit between my thumb and index finger, trying to imagine it was a penis. I didn't want to insert anything - I'm not ready for that, but eventually, I felt something build, and then an orgasmic release. Shane had gone quiet by now, and I hoped that he didn't hear me. I fell asleep eventually.

This happened a week and a half ago. Nothing has happened since, and we haven't even talked about it. We're both just pretending it didn't happen. But I liked it, and there's a part of me that wants it to happen again, and wants it to go further next time...