Scott had thought his jacket was unisex enough to suit me, and he wasn’t completely wrong, but I wished he’d bought something that went better with the skirt. And his blue stocking cap wasn’t very flattering, but... I wasn’t trying to impress Dean or even Glenn.
I didn’t like the look Dean was giving me, sizing me up and comparing me to Charlotte and Nancy and the girls Tim had dated. Other guys did the same sort of thing, but most of them weren’t such jerks about it. Glenn was checking me out, too, more discreetly and politely, and from him it felt more like a compliment, though I wasn’t strongly tempted. I was Linda’s girl, and I hoped the next time I was me, I’d be with her.
Charlotte saw how Glenn was looking at me, despite her poor eyesight, and wasn’t happy about it, though she didn’t say anything. “Hi, Jennifer,” she said softly.
“Nice to meet you, Charlotte,” I said. “And you too, guys. If you could step out for a couple of minutes and let me change clothes? Charlotte, you can stay if you like.”
Charlotte blushed adorably and said, “I guess I’ll go too.”
“You can keep your back turned while I change, but I’d like to have some girl talk before we meet up with the guys again.”
“Okay.”
As Glenn and Dean walked out, Dean said: “I hope you brought something sexy to wear.”
“I’m not dressing up for you,” I said. “I’m doing it for me.” I closed the door behind them, and Charlotte turned her back as I started taking off my shirt.
“So... what did you want to talk about?” she asked.
“Dean. I can tell he’s bad news.”
“Yeah... I don’t like him. I think I would like Tim; Nancy thinks he’s okay, but Dean...”
“Do you think you’ll make time with Glenn, pair off like your jekylls did?”
“I hope so... but I don’t know. He was looking at you — you’re way prettier than me.”
“And I’m already taken. Go for it.”
“You’ve got a boyfriend? But — you won’t have seen him in a year and a half, won’t he have gotten tired of waiting for you...?”
“Can you keep a secret?”
“I can, but I can’t promise about Nancy.”
“What do you think she’ll do if I share a juicy secret? Besides the one she already knows, I mean, that Scott changes into me.”
“I think she’d probably keep it. She’s not a gossip.”
“It’s not a boyfriend, it’s a girlfriend. Scott’s girlfriend.”
“Oh. She’s into you when you’re like that, too?”
“Yeah. She’s the greatest.”
“Wow.”
I’d been getting dressed while we talked: a tie-dyed blouse with leggings under a long blue wool skirt, and blue matching shoes with a two-inch heel. It was similar to an outfit that Linda had liked seeing me in the last time she’d seen me as Jennifer, in the summer of 1971. I didn’t know if we’d be going outdoors or not; I didn’t have any warm over-clothes except Scott’s. Scott had thought his jacket was unisex enough to suit me, and he wasn’t completely wrong, but I wished he’d bought something that went better with the skirt. And his blue stocking cap wasn’t very flattering, but... I wasn’t trying to impress Dean or even Glenn.
After a few moments of stunned silence, Charlotte said: “Is it okay if I ask... I mean... never mind.”
“What the sex is like?”
“Um... I wasn’t going to pry that deep... I was going to ask what it’s like to kiss a girl.”
I compared Taka, Cynthia (how I missed them both!), and Linda. “I’ve only kissed one boy,” I said, “and he wasn’t very experienced, so it’s hard to compare. Sweet and affectionate, most of the time. Sometimes hot. Has Nancy kissed a lot of guys besides Chuck?”
“Yeah, she had several boyfriends in high school, and one guy before Chuck in college. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you that. But it’s not like it’s a secret.”
“It’s okay, I’ll reciprocate. I only dated one other girl before Linda, and one guy, but only briefly because his jekyll decided he felt like he was cheating on his girlfriend when his hyde was with me, so he quit taking it. And Scott has only had three girlfriends, one in high school and two in college.”
“Oh.”
“But we’re getting off track. I think we should be careful around Dean. He acts like he could be grabby.”
“Probably. I think both of the guys are going to go after you, though, not me.”
“Maybe so. I’m not that pretty, but Dean’s chances of going out and meeting another girl and getting very far with her before he changes back into Tim aren’t that great, so he’ll probably go for one of us, and... yeah, Dean being so shallow, and having insulted you already, it’s more likely to be me. All I’m saying is, please don’t leave me alone with him.”
“All right.”
“Okay, I’m ready. Take a look.”
She turned around and said, “You look nice.”
“Thanks. Well, I guess it’s time to face the music, a.k.a. Dean.”
“Shouldn’t Glenn be the music?”
“Chuck is the music. Glenn is the medicine.”
“And what are you?”
“I’d probably be a nursing major, like Scott and Tim.”
I opened the door and saw that the guys were talking a little way down the hall.
“I’m done,” I said. They came over and entered the room.
“You look fine,” Glenn said.
“You could stand to show some more skin,” Dean said, “but that’s not bad.”
“I’m not wearing this for you,” I reminded him. “So what do you want to do?”
“We could walk over to the Breck Diner,” Glenn suggested. That was just off-campus, and would be crowded on a Friday night, but there weren’t a lot of other options in walking distance.
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Or,” he said, “if you girls think I look enough like Chuck’s driver’s license photo, we could drive somewhere farther away. We looked at ourselves in the mirror in the men’s room, and Dean thinks I look close enough, but I want a second opinion.”
“Let’s see the license,” I said, and he produced it from his wallet. “Yeah, you’re close enough. What do you think, Charlotte?”
“Y-yeah,” she said.
“Let’s go somewhere we can drink,” Dean said. “The Green Light, for instance.” That was a bar a couple of miles away. I’d heard of it, but Scott had never been there because he was so busy studying. I instinctively wanted to disagree with Dean, but Glenn was nodding, and I didn’t have anywhere else to suggest, given how little Scott had explored the town since he’d moved there.
So we bundled up and went out to where Chuck had parked his car, which wasn’t all that close to the dorm. Dean walked close to me and chatted me up as we went. Since almost the first thing I’d heard him say was a vile insult to Charlotte, not to mention the other crude things he’d said since then, I was pretty well immune to his blandishments.
“So who wants to ride shotgun?” Glenn said as we approached the parking lot.
Charlotte and I looked at each other. I think she was silently pleading with me to let her ride up front with Glenn, but I really didn’t want to be alone in the back seat with Dean, so I said: “Dean, you can have it.”
“You don’t want to ride in back with me?” he asked, and I flatly said: “No.”
So the guys rode up front and the girls in back. I talked with Charlotte in low voices as we got in.
“I hope you’re not mad that I said Dean should ride up front?”
“No, I understand you don’t want to sit with him.”
When we got to the bar, we got a table and ordered a pitcher of beer and some snacks. Charlotte and I sat down next to each other, and Glenn and Dean seemed to silently negotiate for a moment before Dean sat down next to me and Glenn next to Charlotte. Dean was closer to me than I liked, and I scooted my chair closer to Charlotte’s, but he just scooted closer to me a moment later.
Damn it, why did Scott have to take jekyllase now, and not a week or two later during a visit with Linda? And why did Tim’s hyde have to be such a jerk?
“So, Jennifer,” Glenn said, “tell us some more about your jekyllase adventures. When did your jekyll first find out about jekyllase?”
So I told them about Scott walking in on Walter while he was studying, and then talking to Randall about it because Walter refused to talk, and trying it out at a small party like this one had started out as, with Darrell and Emily. I told them about my date with Taka, and how Darrell had decided to quit using jekyllase after that, and how Cynthia and I had had several girls' outings until Emily decided to quit using jekyllase, but I didn’t tell them we were a couple. Our waitress brought our beer and snacks while I was talking, and I drank most of my first glass while I finished my story.
“And Scott’s girlfriend knows about me, and we’re friends and hang out together sometimes. Like when they spend a weekend together, I’ll get a few hours of it to hang out with Linda.”
“But you haven’t seen her in over a year?” Glenn asked.
“Yeah, Scott ran out of jekyllase the summer before last, and the guy he used to buy it from graduated and moved away, and he wasn’t able to find another supplier either at Newcomen or here.”
“What was Cynthia like?” Charlotte asked. After what I’d shared about me and Linda earlier, I suspected she’d guessed that Cynthia and I might have been lovers, too.
“She was taller and prettier than Emily,” I said; “not that Emily wasn’t pretty, but Cynthia could have been a model. More standoffish than Emily, until she got to know you. I don’t know if she ever made any friends besides me and Linda and Emily’s roommate, and after she had a fight with Emily’s roommate, that’s when Emily quit taking jekyllase.”
“How many friends have you made, outside Scott’s friends and their hydes?” Glenn asked.
“Nobody I’m very close to,” I said. “Some people at the hospital down in Florizel where Scott and I used to volunteer, and at the library where we’d read to the kids at story hour.”
“Nice,” Charlotte said. “I wish Nancy would let me out again sometime so I can do something like that... but I guess I’d have to get my eyes checked and get glasses and stuff first.”
“I think Chuck will want to be me again,” Glenn said.
“Yeah, and Tim is going to love being me. Unlike Nancy,” Dean said, and Charlotte hung her head. I put a hand on hers and squeezed it.
“Dean, a word of advice,” I said. “The more you piss off Tim’s friends or their hydes, the less likely he is to want to be you again.”
“I’ll take it under advisement, sweetcheeks. Why wouldn’t Tim want to be this handsome and suave?”
I gaped at him in disbelief. “You have yet to prove you can be suave,” I said. “So far you’ve been rude and vulgar almost every time you’ve opened your mouth.”
“Then you admit I’m handsome,” he said with a cocky grin.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You have to admit you did kind of imply it,” Glenn said.
I glared at him, and Dean laughed.
I thought about proposing to Charlotte that we ditch the guys and take a bus back to campus, but I could tell she wanted to hook up with Glenn, and I didn’t want to interfere with that. I changed the subject.
“So,” I said, “assuming your jekylls decide to be you again, what would you want to do next time?”
“Meet some girls who aren’t so stuck up,” Dean said. Glenn frowned at him and said:
“There’s a park just an hour’s drive from here that Chuck’s never been to. Some interesting rock formations. If he changed into me in the morning... or better yet, didn’t take jekyllase till he got there... I’d like to try rock climbing.”
I looked at Charlotte. She didn’t meet my eyes.
“Dean’s right,” she said. “Nancy won’t want to be me again. I’m shy and fat and nearsighted.”
“Is there something you’re better at than Nancy?” I asked gently.
“Math and science. But I don’t think she’ll care about that.”
“You could suggest that she change into you when she needs to study for a test.”
She brightened a little. “Yeah. And after I put in a few hours of studying, maybe I can do something fun for an hour or two.” She looked shyly at Glenn, who smiled at her.
So that was a hopeful sign. After my second beer, I needed to pee pretty badly, and I said “I’m going to visit the little girls' room,” so Charlotte came with me, though she hadn’t even finished her first glass yet.
After we’d emptied our bladders and washed our hands, she leaned close to the mirror and stared at her reflection in dismay.
“I look even worse than I thought,” she said. “No way Nancy’s going to want to be me again.”
“Cynthia thought that about Emily, the first time she existed,” I said. “And Taka thought that about Darrell... admittedly, they both decided to give up jekyllase eventually, but they did turn into their hydes again. Oh, there’s something Scott meant for us to do earlier, and I forgot. We should measure you — and tell the guys to measure themselves or each other — so your jekylls can buy clothes that fit you.”
“If she just wants me to stay in her room and study for her, she won’t buy clothes for me.”
“I’ll try to talk her into it.”
“You mean Scott will? I’m not sure why she’d listen to him.”
“Well, he took jekyllase after Nancy did, so maybe I’ll be around for a few minutes after you change back.”
As we walked back to our table, I said: “Another thing about jekyllase is that it lets you think through things from two different perspectives. A couple of years ago, when Scott had some big decisions to make, like what he wanted to do with the rest of his life and whether to change schools and majors, he changed into me several times mostly so I could think it over, do independent research, and give him my opinion.”
“And that’s how he decided to come here and enter the nursing program?”
“Yeah. We both took turns volunteering at this hospital...” We’d arrived at our table. Dean and Glenn had been talking, but they fell silent as we approached.
“Did everything come out okay?” Dean asked. Charlotte blushed, and I rolled my eyes.
“You’re not as funny as you think,” I said, sitting back down and pouring myself another beer, “any more than you’re suave. Or handsome,” I added spitefully, although it was true, he was pretty handsome.
“I like girls who play hard to get,” he commented.
“So,” I said to Charlotte, ignoring him, “like I said, maybe Nancy will want to be you sometime so you can think over a problem for her. Like whether to take a job offer that has some serious advantages and disadvantages, or whether to marry the guy she’s dating. Sometimes we can see clearly when our jekylls are too close to the problem.”
“I hope so,” Charlotte said, picking up a pretzel and dragging it through the sauce on her plate but not putting it in her mouth yet. “I don’t want to never live again.”
“I hope Nancy gives you a fair shake.”
Glenn looked uncomfortable, like he wanted to comfort Charlotte but couldn’t think of anything to say that would sound plausible. Dean continued to stare at my breasts, like he’d done all evening, taking a break now and then to stare at some other woman’s breasts or butt. I’d lost count of how many beers he’d had, but it was more than me, and I was on my second or third.
I should probably stop with this one, I thought, taking another sip. I realized later that I was drunker than I thought, and should have stopped at one, under the circumstances.
“It’s true,” Glenn said after an awkward silence. “I think Nancy will like the feeling of being a completely different person. No other drug gives you that.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Before jekyllase, everyone was stuck being the same person their whole lives. No one knew what it was like to be anyone else. And now we’re different people and it’s great.”
Dean put his hand on my thigh and I slapped it away. “Hard to get,” he slurred.
“Imposhible to get,” I said. “I’m already taken.” Oops, I shouldn’t have said that.
Dean scoffed. “Your boyfriend, whoever he was, hasn’t seen you in a year ‘n’ a half. And he wasn’t half the man I am, neither.” He groped me again and this time his hand wasn’t as easy to push away.
“She sure isn’t,” I said. Glenn and Charlotte were staring at me open-mouthed. “My girlfriend knows how to satisfy a woman. I bet even if Tim knows how, you’re too selfish to remember it when you’re in a hurry.”
“You’re a dyke? No way, you’re making shit up to put me off. You’re not as pretty as you think, but you’re too pretty to be a dyke.”
“Makes sense,” Glenn murmured, “since Scott likes girls, his hyde would too... we’re not total opposites.”
“'m not a dyke. I’m bisexual,” I said, or tried to say, although with three beers in me it wasn’t surprising it came out oddly. I tried again to push Dean’s arm away, but his hand crept higher up my thigh.
“What’s that mean?” Dean asked.
“It means she likes both boys and girls,” Charlotte said.
“Then you do want me,” Dean concluded. “Let’s go get a motel room and let Glenn and Charlotte have Tim and Chuck’s room.”
“Not gonna happen,” I said, poking his chest with my finger. “I’m not going to a fucking motel with you.”
“We can do it out back or in the restroom if you’d rather,” he said, grabbing the arm I’d poked him with. “Come on.”
Charlotte looked alarmed. Glenn put a hand on Dean’s arm and said, “Calm down, man. Leave her alone.”
“Fuck you.”
I yanked my arm, hard, but he kept a firm grip on it. The bouncer noticed what was going on about that time and headed over to our table. “You’ve been teasing me all night,” Dean said. “Now you’re going to put up and shut up.”
I slapped him, but he didn’t let go of my arm; he pulled me closer to him just as the bouncer reached our table and interposed himself.
“Is he bothering you, ma’am?”
“Yeah,” I said, jerking my arm away again. This time he let go of me, and I stood up. “I’m going back to campus — I’ll catch a bus. Charlotte, do you want to ride with me?”
She looked from me to Glenn and back again. “Um —” she began, and stopped.
“It’s okay, I can go by myself,” I began, but Glenn said:
“No, this jerk here can ride the bus back. No reason you should suffer because he couldn’t hold his beer or keep his temper.”
“Fuck you, man,” Dean said, and got up and stomped off.
So I sat back down with Charlotte and Glenn, and morosely drank another beer or two. I think I stopped after four, but it might have been five — the most I’d ever drunk as Jennifer, and more than Scott usually drank, too. Glenn had stopped drinking beer at some point and started on Pepsi, so he could drive us back later. I know, nowadays we wouldn’t consider that acceptable, the driver would have to stay sober all evening, but this was before the first big media scare about drunk driving. Anyway, Charlotte had one more, I think, and wasn’t nearly as drunk as me. Glenn had never been very drunk, and was already starting to sober up.
After a while, we returned to campus. We were lucky to get back alive; Glenn wasn’t drunk, but he was definitely under the influence. He got me and Charlotte into his dorm and up to his room. “Better stay here for now,” he said, “seeing as how you can’t go back to your jekylls' rooms until you change back. Especially you, Jennifer.” (Dean still wasn’t back yet.)
“Yeah, Scott’s roommate’s a total straight, he’d freak out if I went in and told him I was Scott’s hyde, and then changed back in front of him.” I giggled and sat down on the edge of Tim’s bed.
“Um...” Charlotte said. “Where are we going to sleep?”
“Well,” Glenn said, “the beds are kind of narrow, and we need to leave Tim’s bed for Dean to use when he gets back. — If he hasn’t gotten into worse trouble and spent the night in jail or something.”
I was drunk enough to not think of the consequences of that — Dean changing back into Tim in front of police officers, implicating him in jekyllase use, and the police questioning him about where he got his jekyllase, possibly leading them to me and Scott. No, I cheered at the idea of Dean spending a night in jail. I wasn’t so lucky.
“So,” Glenn continued, “I guess we could do one of several things... you girls could take my bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor — Chuck has a sleeping bag in the closet —”
“Or,” Charlotte said with unexpectedly boldness, “I could squeeze into the bed with you, and Jennifer could sleep in the sleeping bag... if you don’t mind?” she added, turning to me.
“That... sounds kind of great, actually,” Glenn said. He didn’t look all that enthusiastic about it, though, probably because I was there and Dean would be back at some point. “Or we could —”
That’s about where I passed out. I woke up a little later on, lying in a bed in the darkness, and thought, “Oh, Glenn gave up his bed to me after all,” and wondered if Charlotte was sleeping beside me, but I would have been able to tell. It was a narrow bed and Charlotte was kind of wide — I wasn’t particularly narrow either. I quickly fell asleep again.
When I woke up again, I found a heavy warm weight on me. My head was pounding from the hangover, but I was clear-headed enough to figure out what was going on pretty quickly, especially after I realized a hand was roughly groping my left breast.
“Get off me,” I said loudly, and pushed hard with both arms and both knees. The man on top of me managed to pin one of my arms, but I got him with the other, and one of my knees connected with his groin. He gave a momentary yell and choked it off, maybe trying to avoid waking up other people and causing an investigation. That gave me the idea of screaming, but I decided not to try it just yet. I didn’t know how long I’d slept, but I’d surely be changing back into Scott soon, and I didn’t want that to happen in front of witnesses. He pinned my other leg and all I had free was my right arm, with which I hit him in the face a couple more times before he pinned that one, too.
“Keep quiet, bitch, if you know what’s good for you,” he said in a low voice, and I recognized Dean. Not that anybody but Glenn or Dean would have a key to the room. “You made such a scene back at the bar that I couldn’t get any other woman to give me the time of day. You’ve gotta make it up to me.”
“You’re crazy,” I said. “You —” and he smothered the rest of my sentence with his alcohol-soaked lips and tongue.
But something changed about that tongue and he broke off the kiss, saying “Not now, damnit!”, and I felt his grip on my arms weakening. I struggled harder and managed to free one of my arms, but I didn’t have time to hit him more than once before he was scrambling off me. I sat up and sprang out of bed, clumsily backing away from him — my panties were down around my ankles, I soon realized — and taking in what details I could in the dim light. I found the light switch and turned it on —
— and saw Dean more than halfway back to Tim, covering his privates with his hands and looking ashamed, not meeting my eyes directly. I still had most of my clothes on, but Dean had unbuttoned my blouse and loosened my bra while I was still asleep, as well as pulling my skirt up and my panties down. My pounding headache and awful-tasting mouth were taking up a lot of my attention, but I still had room for gratitude at my narrow escape. And enough presence of mind to know that if Dean was changing back now, I couldn’t be far from changing into Scott.
“Let’s keep our backs turned while we change clothes,” I said.
“Uh — yeah,” Tim said. “I’m so sorry — I’ll never take jekyllase again, Dean is such a —”
“Quiet,” I said. “I’ve got a hangover and I’ll bet you will soon. Quiet’s good for a hangover.”
We turned our backs and I changed into Scott’s clothes. I’d barely finished getting dressed when I felt myself starting to change into him.
And as Scott, I had not only a hangover and the panic of nearly being raped, but overwhelming guilt for subjecting Jennifer to that risk. I should have refused to take jekyllase as soon as I saw how Dean was acting.
“I’m going back to my dorm,” I said. “Let’s talk later.” Tim didn’t meet my eyes.
Sorry about the delay. I've been sick, some days too sick to use a computer at all, and BigCloset doesn't let you schedule chapters ahead of time -- unlike Scribblehub, hint hint.
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Comments
Scary situation, but Jennifer
Scary situation, but Jennifer handled it well. A pity some Hydes are scumbags, but it makes sense given what that surname originally represented (for Dr. Jekyll).
Not All Changes
Are good changes. Dean became more like the Hyde of the original Jekyll.