Grandma ran the brush through my long straight hair. It was sensual, soothing. "So. Any questions about all this girl stuff?"

"You said when you body-swapped us that you weren't going to give us any pointers."

"I just meant don't be running to me over every little thing. And I was pretty angry then. I'm still your grandma. I'm a witch, not an ogre."

I thought about that little white bulb-thing I had seen sitting in with Joy's things in the bathroom. "Well okay. Then about, um, cleaning. I was wondering. When, or should I say how often ......... am I suppose to, uh- what I mean is, um ......... douche?"

PLAY . . NICE!
LAIKA PUPKINO ~ 2008
PART TWO: IN HER SHOES

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||| SATURDAY OCTOBER 4, 2008 ~~~
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I crept into my sister's room shortly before dawn. Joy had kicked the sheets completely off the bed during the night. He lie on his back in the rosy light, snoring, stark naked, oblivious to the Iwo Jima Memorial of an erection angling up from his furry crotch. I know this is a normal part of the nightly sleep cycle for males, and maybe I shouldn't have been weirded out by the sight of what until recently had been my own penis, but this was a disturbing little tableau to find myself in, and I did my best to avoid looking at him, at it, as I stole over to the chair that he'd draped my/his Dockers over, and started going through the pockets.

As it turned out our wallets each had exactly $60 in them, so neither of us would have profited monetarily from being in possession of the other's stuff. But mine had four credit cards to his single ATM debit card. And while I had both our wallets out I swapped our ID's. What good was a driver's licence going to do me that bore the image of some swarthy, bearded 6'2" Arab-terrorist-looking guy? For the next 27 days I would be using Joy's NY State ID card---for all intents being Joy Maria Farranino---until Grandma returned us to our own bodies on All Hallows Eve. I seriously hoped that no one would issue a warrant for my sister's arrest before then. It was a fairly remote possibility, but not as remote as I would have liked.

My younger sibling didn't quite have the initiative to be a real criminal, but he was notoriously impulsive about whatever opportunities for larceny he might randomly come across, if they seemed like easy pickings or if he was drunk. So it was with considerable misgivings that I slid my license into the window of his shoddy slick plastic HELLO KITTY wallet and stuffed it into his pants pocket. I retrieved my keychain from the opposite pocket and replaced it with his; a huge jangling knot of about fifty keys- none of which probably even went to anything anymore, but I imagined were kept as mementos of every short term job or living situation in his chaotic life. Several were motel room keys, stamped with the return address, that I would guess he kept just to be messing with somebody...

Joy's eyes were open, regarding me from out of a fog of sleep. "What I'm doing over there?" he slurred before they eased shut again.

I tiptoed from the room, stopping to inspect the four shoes sitting next to the door. There was a pair of woven jute sandals, and some weird klutzy multicolored pumps that looked like a couple of incredibly ugly Rose Parade floats. God, not those...

Compared to my normal size 12 men's shoes, these sandals I was carrying by their thin straps seemed to weigh nothing, and they looked like they would be too small to fit anyone. But slipping them onto my feet downstairs in the kitchen I found they fit perfectly. Our grandma had bewitched us in the hopes that "walking in each other's shoes." would teach us something. But as I got up and strode across the kitchen and back I had no great epiphanies. Mostly I was just glad they were flat heeled and comfortable, nothing like the treacherously high heels I seemed to recall Joy favoring, which I would have needed practice to even walk in...

Nor did these burgundy jeans I had on seem all that unfamiliar to me. Or this long sleeved solidarity-with-the-working-class denim blouse, just a man's work shirt with the buttons reversed. I was quite grateful that this wasn't the miniskirted black and florescent pink and clear plastic outfit Joy had worn to our Mother's funeral, which---with that Marla Singer rat's nest of hair she'd been sporting---had made her look like some kind of Martian junky cheerleader.

I took the key to my truck off of my ring and threaded it onto a leather bootlace I'd found in the junk drawer, which I fashioned into a crude necklace. My sister's plum red fingernails weren't outlandishly long, just a quarter of an inch past the tips of my fingers, but it was a quarter inch longer than I was used to, and tying the knot was difficult. If these nails were still this awkward to use tomorrow I would lop them off.

I slipped the leather cord over my head, dropping the key down my blouse, in between what the label on the brassiere I had fumbled my way back into this morning said were my C-cup breasts. This is how serious I was about keeping this key---my truck---out of his clutches.

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I was starting to pour myself a bowl of cereal when I heard Grandma's voice. "Don't Joy- I mean Teddy. I'm making omelettes for all of us."

"You don't have to go through all that trouble."

"I sort of do. Those things will keep forever," she frowned, indicating the box of Cocoa Puffs, "But that whole carton of eggs won't. It's either this or hard-boil them for later."

"Then sure, I love your omelettes. So when's visiting hours at the hospital?"

"Nine to noon, one to four, and five to eight, unless otherwise noted. At my age you get to visit a lot of friends in the hospital. Hours are real short up in the IC unit, but thankfully he's in a two bed room. I take that decision as a good sign, even if they're only guessing," she said, laying a hand on my shoulder, "Did you sleep good?"

"Like a rock. I was surprised."

"Well it cooled off a little, finally," sighed Grandma. She poured herself a cup from the pot of coffee I'd made. Sipped it, made a face. "Now that's a cup of coffee!"

"I like it strong," I shrugged.

"I guess so." Grandma set her mug down and came toward me, appraising me affectionately. Picked my long ponytail up off my back, "This is nice."

"I was just trying to keep it out of my face."

"That'll work. But you shouldn't use a rubber band for a tie. It'll really wreck your hair." She broke the rubber band and worked it free of my hair, "I'm sure I can find something better. Also, when it's this long you should let it dry more before you bundle it up. You took a bath this morning?"

"Just a shower."

"I'll be that was interesting for you," she grinned. She reached into the purse in front of me and came up with a brush. Tilted my head back and started brushing my hair out, a slow methodical proceedure.

"It was different," I said. The strangeness of it all as I slid the soap over the unfamiliar and virtually hairless terrain of my soft belly, my flaring hips, my ass- feeling how the muscular grace of my gluteals had been replaced by the undignified roundness of these soft girlish orbs.

"So. Any questions about all this?"

I toyed with the metal studs in my earlobes. Rotating them, these unfamilar bits of metal stuck through my flesh. An oddly gratifying sensation. I had intended to get my ears pierced as a teenager, until my dad went absolutely apeshit over the prospect. I said, "I thought you told us you weren't going to give us any pointers."

She shrugged an apology, "I just meant don't be running to me over every little thing. I'm afraid I was in a bit of a mood last night. But I am still your grandma. I'm a witch, not an ogre."

I thought about that little white bulb-thing I had seen sitting in with Joy's things in the bathroom. "Well okay. Then about, um, cleaning. I was wondering. When, or should I say how often ........ am I suppose to, uh ......... douche?"

"Why? Does your pussy smell bad?" asked Grandma. She must have seen me flinch. "Well what do you want me to call it? Vagina? Yoni? Front bottom? Hoo Hoo?"

"No, that's- Pussy is fine."

My pussy. Twelve hours ago I couldn't have imagined I would be having a conversation like this. About PH balance and vaginitis, about old superstitions and social taboos born of mean old Judeo-Christian patriarchalism. About a whole canon of fraudulent science (vaginal orgasm) foisted on women by male scientists who would rather weave theories inside the purity of their masculine intellects than accept any input from women themselves; a folly that lasted well into the 20th century...

Grandma surprised me by saying that under ordinary circumstances it shouldn't be necessary to use the thing at all. That like any warm moist body cavity, if you get right down next to it, a vagina will have a smell, but that's normal ......... And that Joy's penchant for frequent douching probably had more to do with some 'Lady Macbeth Syndrome' than a real sanitary necessity ........ And if there was such a necessity, an overpowering rankness coming from down there, it meant something was wrong, and I should go see a doctor. And that: "Just between us girls, there's things that are a lot more fun things you can put up there!"

"GRAND-ma!"

"Oh, like you've never used one before."

I started to shout "Grand-ma" again, but she had me. The old woman was seldom crude, but when she was, she was so casual and forthright about it that it was startling. I went into a major giggling fit- "You ....... My GOD you're incorrigable!"

She waggled her eyebrows like Groucho Marx, "Well hey. Who wants to be corrugated?"

We heard the shower starting upstairs, and then a baritone voice (that must have been very loud to be heard so clearly down here, coming through this old house's double flooring, rock-hard plaster and heavy solid oak doors...) started belting out, "Hey Figaro! Lala-la-lala-la-lala-la-lala; Whoah Figaro! Lala-la-lala-la-lala-la-lala! TUT-ti mi vogliono! TUT-ti mi vogliono! Qua la Parruca! Qua la parrucca-"

"Joy knows the words?!" I gasped, "But she HATES opera! What did she call it? Oh yeah- 'Music for phony snob asshole who all only pretend they like it because they think all the other phony snobs really do'..."

"Well you see? Maybe you don't know your sister as well as you think you do. She was sixteen when she used to yell about your Pavoratti albums. Sixteen. You two haven't talked---I mean actually talked---in years."

"FIGARO! FIGARO! FIGARO! FIGARO! FEEEEEE-GAAAAA-RRRO!" thundered my sibling. Joy's inventiveness and fine sense of pitch noticeably improved my singing voice, which had been adequate at best.

Our Neopolitan serenade moved on to Santa Lucia, then the 1980's novelty hit Shut Uppa You Face, and finally a demented rendition of that "What's Going On?" song by Four Non Blondes, where he discovered he couldn't hit those high yodelly parts anymore.

Grandma Rosa topped off our coffees and resumed brushing my hair. Dragging it down one side of my head then the other, a hundred fine steel fingers massaging my scalp. It felt wonderful! And yet...

"Jesus Teddy, you're so tense. Is this tugging too much?"

"No, not at all! It's just ............... I'm enjoying you doing this."

"And that's a problem?"

"No, I ......... But it's weird. You're treating me different. Being so nice to me."

She grinned, "And I beat you before?"

"I didn't mean that! You were nice---wonderful---but it was a different kind of nice. This is ...... I don't know. Something."

"I think I understand. This is a more female sort of bonding, at least for our culture and times. The differences are very subtle, nothing you'd probably even be aware of if this wasn't so new to you. And like you say, you're enjoying it. But you don't want to give in to any evil 'girl feelings'. You're afraid that if you take pleasure in anything that happens this month, while you're in this body, you might not want to go back. Is that it?"

"Maybe."

"Well I got news for you, Princess. If having your Grandma comb your hair and make you pretty is enough to turn you into a girl inside, you already always were one. You can't make someone male or female by how you dress them. And that includes what flesh they're wearing," she gently squeezed a patch of skin on my arm with her fingers and croaked in a weird gurgling voice, "Luminous beings we are, not this crude matter."

"That makes sense. I mean about people, not the mystical stuff necessarily."

She spoke calmly and slowly, lulling me, "So don't go spooking yourself. Just relax. Enjoy the scenery, the change in perspective. Think of this experience like going to go live in Japan for a while. Which as I recall you were all set on doing, before you suddenly got that job at the pool company. Remember that?"

"Mmmmmm," I purred, under the power of her Jedi mind trick, letting myself unknot as she brushes this side, that side, now all the way down to the ends.

"You observe all the customs, immerse yourself in the culture, hopefully learning to see things through their eyes. To find the beauty in their world, the logic in their ways. New experiences, expanding your horizons. That's really what life is about. But when you come back to the States, are you Japanese?"

"No. But maybe a little."

"Excellent point. So do you think you could live with 'a little'? Maybe becoming a more complete human being?"

"I guess so," I said as she smoothed down my bangs, which I'd tried and of course had failed to incorporate into my pony tail.

"There. All done. Now hold on a second and I'll..." She lay down the brush, and reaching back behind her started digging through the magic junk drawer, which so often seemed to have exactly what a person needed in it. She came up with a scrunchy covered in ruffled polka-dot fabric, held it up in front of me. "You like?"

"It's got dice on it," I said, but then decided that a pair of red plastic dice was not too terribly cutesy, compared to a lot of other things that could have been on there. I nodded my approval.

Holding the scrunchy wide open, she carefully slid it up the length of my hair, proclaiming (in a teasing ironic tone that acknowledged my hesitancy about all this), "I crown thee ........ Princess Teddi! With an 'i' of course."

"Of course."

"Awwwwwww, ain't that sweeeeeet? Is Gwammie fixum widdle sissy's hairs up?!" came a mocking male voice. Like a shit-grenade tossed into the conviviality of the moment.

Oh. Joy.

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He stood there, self-conscious in just a pair of boxers, holding my slacks and shirt up in front of him like some reluctant Army inductee. "I need clean clothes. I can't wear these, they stink!"

"I know, I was driving all day yesterday. Bring both our bags down and we'll exchange wardrobes. Mine's that American Tourister- you'll see it."

As he ran upstairs Grandma whispered to me a serious tone. "Remember, don't let him bait you."

"I'm trying Grandma, for your sake. I mean with everything you're going through."

"I wish you could see how important this is for you, but I suppose that's a start."

"He sure doesn't make it easy! The first- I mean the VERY first thing out of his mouth when he came in here today. Not 'Good morning' or 'How are you?', but taunting us like some stupid little brat! And then he has the nerve to turn right around and hit me up for a favor. I felt like telling him to get bent."

"He does that because he knows it works with you. It takes two to have an argument, and you'd be surprised how quick he'll give up if you don't react. You're the mature one here; so whether it's fair or not, the responsibility is more yours. It might help to remember that beneath that whole 'party animal' act he's not a happy person..."

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When Joy returned we opened our suitcases, piling everything onto the dining room table's heavy lace cover.

Joy found jeans and a t-shirt to put on. He was scornful of my unimaginative "Mormon" wardrobe, but I at least had provided him with a lot of clean clothes; while his overnight bag held just a few random odds and ends. A fresh pair of panties and a second brassiere. A sheer aqua-colored rayon tank top. A pair of knee-length socks striped in various sherbert colors. A short plaid skirt that might have facilitated some boyfriend's Catholic schoolgirl fantasy, probably in conjunction with these black fishnet stockings. The greater part of the bag had been taken up by three sweaters, each heavier than the last. Real fucking practical when the night's lows were above 80 just before dawn!

"Damn it Joy, didn't anyone ever teach you how to pack?"

"Hey, it wasn't my fault! Shit happens. The landlord wouldn't let me get any of my stuff when he locked me out. That's just spiteful, you know? All my good shoes. I mean how's that going to get him the back rent? And if I hadn't left a few things at Lester's place I really would've been screwed!"

It seemed to me that this definitely was his fault, but arguing wasn't going to change my situation. I would need to buy clothes, and soon. And since I would only need the stuff for a month, I decided to try the thrift shops before I went on some mad shopping spree at the mall, like the transgendered heroines in those crazy stories (magical transformations, indeed!) that my neighbor Elsa was always writing...

There were smaller odds and ends that needed to be either transferred or kept. His MP3 player. My travel alarm. His pack of colored Sharpies. My checkbook- which I hurriedly stuffed into my pocket! With my ID, my face, and his talent for forging signatures he could have a real field day!

He pointed, "There's still some things of mine in that purse."

It was supple red leather with gold embellishments and a shoulder strap, fairly large, deep enough to be functional even with the busted clasp. I held it upside down over the table, emptying it. He grabbed lip balm, a packet of kleenex, six quarters. He was about to take the pair of gold hoop earrings but then ceded them to me- "Don't lose them."

"I won't. Thanks."

He smiled, "You like these?"

"I sort of do."

As I mentioned, I'd wanted to get my ears pierced when I was younger. And I had actually planned to, until my father got wind of this and told me he'd throw me out of the house if I did something so goddamn faggoty. I was shocked. So many vociferously straight boys were doing it that I didn't see it as a "gay" thing at all. I thought he had to be kidding- this was 1991 for God's sake! But when I realized how dead serious he was, the earrings became another of those things that I decided to put off until I moved out on my own; and that I somehow never got around to.

So wearing these would be like crossing something off my list. And though I chided myself for the pettiness of it, given Dad's perilous condition, I sensed that wearing them right in front of him would be like some sneaky sort of revenge...

Joy poked through the pile of stuff from the purse, and then checked the empty bag frowning.

When I realized what this was about I became furious. "If you're looking for your cigarettes, I busted them up and flushed them down the toilet."

He smiled hesitantly, "Really? Okay, that's great. I'm uh, quitting. It's hard to explain, but I just don't feel the need."

"Not so goddamn hard to explain at all. It's because I'm in your goddamn body, going through your goddamn nicotine withdrawals. Thanks a bunch, 'Bro'!"

"Then I really owe you one! But it's been half a day now, the longest I've ever gone. I really think I can do this. A fresh start and all that," he threw his shoulders back and took a huge deep breath, smiling, showing me how much he preferred being able to do this to his poisonous little vice.

Joy's usual style was to simply tell anyone suggesting that he might curtail any of his habits to fuck off. And he never, ever 'owed one' to somebody. Was it possible that he actually meant it? Calming down, I said, "Well I hope you can. You'll probably never get a better chance than this."

In the kitchen Grandma hollared out. "Kids, breakfast is ready!"

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The omelettes were perfect---loaded with peppers and unions, tomato, pancetta, and a perfect blend of mild and more intense cheeses---and at 9:00 we were ready to go to the hospital. Almost ready.

I was still fighting the idea---well it was actually more of a vague subliminal impression---that since I didn't have my "spout" there, then what was keeping the pee inside me? I was sure this illusion would fade as my male anti-accident software adjusted itself to the unfamiliar tactile input this new body was sending it. But until it did...

"Hang on," I said, and ran upstairs to the bathroom. And this time it actually had been a good idea. Coffee, coffee, coffee...

As I came back down the stairs I heard Grandma telling Joy in a calm, conspiratorial tone, "Don't let it get to you when Teddi acts like she knows everything. There's something secretly insecure about anyone who's that in control all the time. It takes two to argue, and you're the one who knows how to step outside the 'rules' of a situation. If she starts to bait you just tell yourself 'I'm not playing that game'..."

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Dad's car usually sat on the stub of a driveway I'd pulled into last night. Most of the houses on our block didn't have a driveway, so the parking situation here was rather dog-eat-dog. I looked up and down the crowded street for the big Lincoln Continental, "Where's the Beast?"

"Still at the restaurant," said Grandma, "We can swing by their on the way home and pick it up. We'll have to take your beast."

Joy stuck his hand out. "Give me the keys, I'm driving."

I cackled wildly, "Are you insane? NO WAY am I letting you drive my truck!"

"I'm the one with the driver's license, remember?" He pulled out his pink kitty kat wallet and waved it at me like a talisman. It looked absurd in his beefy paw. By comparison, my own stylish eelskin wallet was living up to its unisex presumptions.

"That's a piece of plastic. I'm the one that EARNED the license. You're the one who's license was revoked. Remember? The one the New York Post called 'a one woman demolition derby', Our current bodies don't change that fact. You are so lucky that Judge didn't-"

"Shut up you two, or I'll stick you in both inside Josepho's little friend there," Grandma Rosa glowered, pointing at the statue in the center of our tiny fenced-in front lawn. "I'll drive!"

We regarded the lawn ornament, a three-foot tall concrete negro in a brightly painted stable boy's uniform, grinning toothily as he held out a steel ring. A hitching post, although I don't think our father would have taken too kindly to anyone parking a horse on his precious dichondra .......... Grandma was kidding of course, but the idea that she could trap us inside the thing was unnerving.

"You're driving?"

"Why not, Joy? I have a license," she grinned campily, "One that matches my gorgeous face."

"But you won't even be able to see over the steering wheel!"

"Then I'll just have to look through it. If I may, Teddi Dear."

"Il piacere é mio, Gorgeous." I said as I withdrew the key from its snug fleshy hiding place, pulled it off over my head and placed it in Grandma's outstretched palm.

Because I used it to haul pallets of heavy steel swimming pool panelling around, my F-350 with it's double back tires had a serious suspension system on it, and it was quite a climb up into the cab. At Grandma's request Joy her up into the driver's seat, then he and I got in the other side. As I climbed in first he snickered, "You really like riding bitch, don't you?"

What?!! I hadn't heard this term since I was in high school, and even there it wasn't one that was bandied about by the artsy intellectual kids I hung out with. It had to do with the idea that for a guy to ride in a car sitting between two other males was a mark upon his masculine honor; And if it couldn't be avoided one should at least save face by complaining about it, noting that Jimmy here is a much better candidate for the wussy bitch seat, ha ha ........... Infantile back then, and given our current circumstances it was beyond bizarre. Bitch was never a word that Joy would tolerate in any context that pertained to her, or to women as a class. But today he was smirking gleefully over having just taunted me with it. I sighed, "Just ........ grow up."

Perched behind the wheel in her old-fashioned fuchsia and white gingham dress and fuchsia safari hat Grandma looked like some weird little Muppet. She had to rachet her seat all the way forward to reach everything she needed to.

But then she adjusted her mirrors, yanked back on the shift lever and skillfully eased us into the street,
our concrete jigaboo* grinning his encouragement...
.

[*Dad cagily denied it, but we all knew this grotesque piece of statuary was his racist Guido "up yours!"
to the few African Americans living on our block...]
.

To be continued...
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Great version of What's Up by Four Non Blondes:
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vbu7NjUDYHk )