JOSETTE’S STORY, Chapter 5

By Chirstopher Leeson

Over the next three days, Josette and Darrell were seen together around the school frequently. At each meeting, Darrell looked and sounded more relaxed. But Josette knew that other people—including Josie's friends—were watching them, too.

 When a couple of girls from the in-crowd cornered her, she had no choice but to talk to them politely. They only yammered on about what the “group” was doing. Being among these people familiar with Josie but not herself made Josette extremely anxious. It drove home to her the fact that around Darrell she felt at ease. She wanted to spend a lot more time with him.

#

On the fourth day, near the end of school, Josette saw Leah near her locker; Leah smiled oddly. The honey blonde came up wearing a short miniskirt and a sleeveless top. Josette pretended to admire her fashion while getting a good, long look at Leah’s shapely legs.

"Hey Jo, I've been wondering why you've come back from summer vacation as if you turned into a whole different person."

Fashion demands minute by minute attention. It’s so tiring.

“Who are you and what have you done with Josie?” Leah asked.

The question startled Josette. “What do you mean?”

“Why is fashion suddenly not important to you? Have you had a stroke or something?”

Josette eyed her coolly. “Leah, what specific topic requires discussion?”

Leah wrinkled her nose as if smelling something that she didn’t care for. "We need to talk seriously. You’ve been staying off by yourself lately unless you’re slumming with that nerd, Darrell. The entire school is wondering what’s with you."

“Groups such as ours must be careful to maintain impeccable reputations.”

Josette scowled. "Why can’t I be friends with anyone I want to?"

“Don’t you remember you gave your oath to the group to think and act just like them?”

"That used to work; but now we’re maturing. Maybe we’re falling under different rules now.”

Leah looked like she’d been stung by a wasp. “Chill out, Josie! I’m giving you the advice you need to salvage your reputation! Maybe it’s not your fault. Maybe you had a heat stroke last summer! No error is worse than a social misstep. Associating with negative people is going to turn you into a negative person, too. Have you had a medical checkup lately? Like with a psychiatrist?”

“Leah, that remark is unkind. There’s nothing wrong with me, except I’ve tried to be a kid for too long. Global fashion, parties, and musical tastes don’t add up to much. With Darrell, I’m learning how to play strategic war games. I’m getting pretty good at it!”

Leah looked incredulous. “I hope you’re only going through a phase. If you keep going where you’re going, your social circle may go where they want to go instead and leave you behind.”

“You’re talking about canceling me? Great! Better: I’d rather be cancel than go along with bullying.”

Leah blinked in surprise. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Josie, but you won’t make me angry. You’re not yourself. Something is bothering you. I'm holding out the hope that I’ll soon have my best friend back. When you realize that you’ve gone wrong, just say you’re sorry and we’ll help you build back better.”

“I might do that,” said Josette, “but for the time being, I’m still on vacation.”

Leah, shaking her head, flounced away.

“Damn those snobs!” Josette muttered to herself. “They really are going to cancel me!”

While she didn’t exactly care for the idea of being rejected in scorn, if Josie’s old gang cut her out of the herd, she at least wouldn’t have to listen to their silliness.

Josette had promised to link up with Darrell after school for sodas. She found him waiting for her next to the driveway at the parking lot.

Darrell peered at her through narrowed eyes. “Everything ok, Josie? You have a funny expression.”

“I’m fine. It’s just that Leah said something mean to me.”

“Did she get catty about something?”

“No, but we don’t see eye to eye anymore. I’m almost eighteen, and my outlook is changing. It’s time for me to turn a page, and the gang doesn’t understand that.”

Darrell nodded sympathetically. "Do you still feel like grabbing that soda?"

Josette managed a smile. "Now more than ever!"

At the cafe, Darrell’s stream of jokes soon had her laughing again. Darrell seemed preoccupied. Finally, he asked her, “Maybe we can go to the movies together this weekend?”

Josette didn’t think twice before agreeing, as Loren and Darrell had been to the movies together many times. “Sure, I want us to relate to one another as friends.”

"So do I!" Darrell said quickly. Too quickly.

So they took a lunch downtown and then took in the seven o’clock showing. Unfortunately, the movie thumped and thudded. Neither of them liked woke movies. The film's protagonist, a newly graduated female police officer, from the start demonstrated better skills and instincts than even the station’s most seasoned officers. The film’s men were variously creepy or inept. The only boy this Mary Sue girl boss didn't find creepy was was a downtown troublemaker whom she knew had been under the watchful eye of the law for months.

Josette and Darrell each bought candy before leaving the theater, perhaps to get the film’s bad taste out of their mouths. “One would think that a cop movie would be better based than that one was,” Darrell apologized.

“Don’t sweat it,” said Josette. “There are so many classic movies that people don't have to watch this woke trash. You know what you’re getting in the older stuff. They were made back when there were still a few people sane in Hollywood.”

“Maybe we can watch a few of those together,” Darrell suggested.

“Yeah, we should. Africa Screams is worth seeing! But don’t push rush me, Darrell. I’m not ready for anything serious.”

“I swear I won't,” he promised without enthusiasm.

Days of classes and activities followed. Josette was no longer being approached by beautiful people group, and she supposed she’d been canceled. No even Leah, who had claimed to want to fix things, did not come near her. Maybe the others wouldn't let her. Why couldn't she see that she couldn't go one letting other people do her thinking for her?

Josette shrugged off this turn of events. She had not real affinity for Leah and she only wished she had broken with the gang first. But she had more important things to worry about. First and foremost was the dark of the moon. Did the paper tell the truth, or was she going to be a girl for the rest of her life? She'd know by morning. The hour of darkness would come in the night while she was, hopefully, asleep.

She awoke in the night, not feeling ill, but not feeling right. She touched her body, lightly at first, and then with astonished surprise. It seemed too good to be true, but the girl who had made a nightmare of Loren's life was suddenly nowhere to be found.

She--he-- hurried to the mirror. The room around him was Loren's again. He saw l Loren in the mirror, but he wasn't wearing babydoll pajamas, he was wearing a sweatshirt and male pajama bottoms from a rummage sale. He examined himself carefully, double-checking whether his restored maleness wasn’t a mere dream.

Flopping back into bed, Loren stayed lay awake until sunup. It seemed impossible that he could have lived through a month in a different sex, but the recall of his girl-experience remained sharp in every detail, nothing like a dream. The conviction grew that he had gone through something weird and crazy. But real or not, the ordeal seemed to have finally ended.

His life as Loren Medford was once more on track.

The evidence was everywhere! His closet was full of men’s clothes. When he went downstairs and his mother looked at him, she showed no reaction. It hurt not to be able to share his experience with her, but the magical instructions had warned him not to do that. He live in elation for a couple of days, before realizing he was once more sloughing sticky-footed through the mire of a very dull world.

Darrell briefly greeted Loren at school before continuing down the hall. The boy soon confirmed that no one remembered Josette. There were no memories of her presence at Westbook High, except for those that Loren himself possessed.

Speaking to his few school friends, he learned that they had only male memories about him from over the last month. Weird! When he next got together with Darrell, he asked him leading questions, trying to find out what he remembered. He remembered things that didn't jive with anything that Loren remembered. He wondered if he was still living two different lives in two different worlds. That was scary-weird!

Had Josie gotten her memories back since he'd left her world? Had she forgotten everything that he had learned while living in her body? Loren had learned that Josie's life had been shallow. She let other people do her thinking as the price of being popular. Without her membership with the beutiful people group, Josie’s life amounted to nothing. When high school ended, and the group broke apart, she would take nothing away except an empty head. Also, from seeing another life in perspective, Loren was more aware than every about the deficiencies in his own life.

With the new moon drawing nigh, Loren entered a strange state of mind. He caught himself contemplating what it would feel like ti be Josette again. Both Loren and Josie had been unhappy, but both their lives had good parts to them. Loren appreciated the good things in life, while Josie had a great body. What if the better parts of each life could come together, while the worst parts could be kicked to the curb?

But, no, that was crazy! Returning to her reality risked permanent Girl World entrapment. He desired experimentation, not a perpetual immersion into “Girl World”.

Under thirty, girls thrived better. Males entered into their best years when they became men. But when girls became women, it marked the end of the best part of their lives. From thirty, it was all down hill.

On the other hand, it depressed him that he'd have to wait another fourteen years before he could put a decent life together. That would mean college study, and then starting somewhere at the bottom rung of the ladder. What a bummer.

A girl could at least prepare for the bad years by finding some some guy who would work like a fool to take care of her, all the the sake of a beauty that would soon be fading. A wife often divorced a husband while she still have some looks lift to offer to win a more successful guy. But whoever she was married to when the big Three-0 birthday hit, it would then be her guy's turn to exchange her for a younger model. Divorce and loneliness, being shut out from all the best things in life, was one of the things that made women over thirty miserable.

As the days rolled on and the new moon drew nigh, Loren kept thinking about his recent adventures. He had left Girl World without closure. He could remember how bad Josette had had it in that other world, but now that he was back in his own world, he could see what a dumpster his life had been. He kept thinking about the possibilities of the magic oil. He wondered what Josie was doing back in that other world. She was having her best years while he was having his worst. He shook his head. No amount of trouble could be enough to make him to put another dab of the magical oil on his arm.

But, almost before he knew it, that is exactly what he did.

Josette awoke the next morning in a pair of sexy girls' pajamas. When Mrs. Melford called her down for breakfast, she ate in a semi-daze barely tasting the food. It took a while to get mentally and physically coordinated in this body again. Nonetheless, once at school, Josette felt less jumpy. In fact, she started to brim with confident and daring.

She stepped out of her car wearing a short skirt and a sparing summer blouse. She saw Darrrel coming into the parking lot. With a wave, he shouted, “Josette!”

“Hi,” she replied.

"I missed you!" said Darrell.

“Missed me? Did I disappear for a month or something?”

“What are you talking about?"

“What day was it we last saw each other?”

“What’s with you? It was yesterday when you gave me a ride home after school?”

“Oh, yeah! Sorry. Girls always get forgetful during their time of the months!”

“I never heard they did,” Darrell replied.

“We all do, but we don’t like to talk about it.”

After school, they went to get malts. Darrell had a list of suggestions for what they could do together over the next few days.

Some things got pretty close to being sexy, but she knew she could trust Darrell not to go to far. She felt like going full-tilt on the girl thing for the month ahead. One result of that was the loss of her inhibitions to dress in ways to show off maximum skin. She didn't know why she liked being looked at looking like that, but she did. She considered herself damned lucky to have the right clothes to wears when she wanted to look like a guest star on Unhappily Ever After.

Seeing her like that, the boys started acting squirrelly. When they slinked up close, most got so tongue-tied that she couldn’t make out what they were saying. But the worst of the boys were the pushy one. They were always asking her to go places with thelm. The only cocky boys who avoided her were those from Josie’s old gang. That crowd seemed to have officially cancelled her. But if that meant she could stay clear of them, and the sappy girls in their group, too, the situation suited her.

She didn’t enjoy drawing boys like flowers drew bees and it was especially creepy when they came up to close when she was all alone. She noticed that all the unattached, good-looking girls had this problem. The fix was to get some male arm candy! Boys would usually respect a claim that another boy had on a girl.

She decided to bear down on Darrell and hang steady with him. That arrangement worked out fine at first, and it was on her suggestion that the two of them should go to the beach together.

When they hit the sand, Josette attracted many a male glance. She had changed into a bikini intend to wear such a thing in public for the first time. Worn beneath her casual clothes was a Rio-cut number decorated with some stained-glass-type pattern. It felt weird to be seen that way by strangers, but shyness faded with surprising rapidity. Maybe women weren't built to hang on to bashfulness for long.

The other girls at the beach didn’t smile her way. When she realized that their problem was jealousy, it made her laugh inside. The lot of them — especially the hot ones — deserved all the comeuppance they could get for the shabby way they had treated Loren!

"Doesn’t being stared at make you uncomfortable?" Darrell asked.

“Do you want me to cover up more?” she asked.

“Oh, God, no! I'm slammed by the way you look! It drives me out of my mind, and I love the feeling!”

“That’s nice, Darrell, but don’t start acting out your craziness in real life. It might hurt our friendship.”

Darrell winced. "Josette, you’re always talking about us being friends. Maybe you don't know that boys don’t like being kept in the friend zone. For them it’s like having an itch that he's not allowed to scratch!"

“Don’t get too intense, Darrell. Intensity -- from a guy whose so big and strong -- makes me jumpy.”

“I thought that our relationship would be developing more than it has. What you think about when we're together.”

“What should I think about it?”

“Don't you have any opinion about what parts are good and what parts are sort of -- wrong?”

“That's nothing! Perfection doesn’t exist in this world, or in any other world I’ve been in.”

“You’re a hard girl to understand.”

“That’s true. Doesn't it make me interesting? But let’s not talk about heavy things. It will kill all the fun we’re having here on the beach.”

Darrell reluctantly agreed and switched the talk over to the new war games at Jimmy Jack’s game store. But the longer their conversation continued, the more unspoken tension gathered around them.

Just then, a mob of about half a dozen buff boys came over, their flesh well baked by twelve summer weeks spent in the sun.

“Say, babe,” one of them called. “Come out into the light and bloom. I’d like you to join our volleyball game?”

Josette looked his way. “Count me out! Me and my man are having a deep conversation here!”

“I bet the nerd doesn't have anything else to go deep with!” said a shaggy-headed boy with a deep tan.

“Hey!” said Darrell, belatedly exerting himself. “If you need an interpreter, the lady has just said she doesn’t want to play volleyball with you!”

One ball-player looked his way. “Don't you get it, geek? With girls, ‘no’ always means ‘maybe.’”

“I wouldn’t bet on that,” said Josette.

One of the beach guys reached out for her. “We’ve got some gals on the team. You’ll fit right in. "Let me help you up."

Josette slapped his hand away.

Darrell got up instead and t ried to shove the pushy guy away. “Why don’t you sand ticks realize you're not wanted?” he asked.

The guy smirked and gave Darrell a shove. He toppled backwards, striking sand. He scrambled to his feet and started throwing punches. Josette had never seen Darrell pitch into a fight before. And she could see he wasn't very good a brawler.

The teammates formed a ring around Darrell, pushing him back and forth between them. Josette sprang up up and started punching, too. One volleyball guy scooped her up to his shoulder and hoisted her belly-down over his shoulder.

Some others couldn’t resist touching her legs, her sides, and her bikinied bottom. Darrell started swinging hard and wide. Unfortunately, the interlopers struck back and Darrell was soon beaten to his knees.

“Cut that rough stuff out!” shouted a mature male. “Put that girl down this minute, buddy!”

Josette was accordingly plopped down on her feet. She staggered a few steps and saw that the intervening tough was the lifeguard on duty.

“We were just asking her to play volleyball,” a teen said.

The guard looked her way. “Do you want to play volleyball with these clowns, Miss?” the lifeguard asked.

“I told them I didn’t want to,” she answered back.

“That’s it, then,” said the guard. “Head back to your net before I call security to help me boot the pack of you off the beach for the rest of the weekend!”

“Let’s go,” said one of the mob. “The little blonde is the stuck-up type!”

A half a minute later, Darrell and Josette were left standing alone. Darrell didn’t look happy.

“Don’t wear such a long face,” Josette urged.

“I tried to protect you, but all I did was get pushed around.”

“You all you could, and that makes me think you’re pretty damned great!”

Darrell sighed. “You've changed the way I think about things, Josette. I never thought about ever defending a lady before.”

“I hope you learned something today that you can use the next time,” the girl said.

“Hey,” said Darrell, “instead of hanging with these beach bulms, why don’t we get together with my war-game group? This is Saturday and we meet on Saturday night. You mentioned that you're interested in war gaming.”

“I am! Just thinking about doing Advanced Third Reich with all the country seats filled makes me hot!”

“Maybe you'd want to take one of the easy armies, like Italy or France?”

“Hell no! The real fun is driving panzers into Russia!”

“Okay then! Super great!” exclaimed Darrell, his eyes brightening.

Darrell introduced his gamer buddies, not realizing that Josette already knew them all. She had put on her blouse, but still displayed her bikini bottoms. She knew every war gamer yearned to have hot girls in their gaming circle. The boys didn't play well that night. Josette thought that they looked somewhat distracted.

Unlike the beach posers, wargamers tended to be scrupulously polite, treating her like a princess. This was the sort of crowd that Josette had been hurting for. They carried on great conversations about movies and books. The boys continually stole glances at her neckline and legs, but Josette couldn't be offended by boys acting like boys. After all, she knew that the outfit she was wearing game them permission to be peek.

#

When Josette drove Darrell home, he wasn’t his usual good-natured self. Some instinct warned her not to push him to talk when he was looky moody.

At the zoo the next day, Darell's frustrations spilled over and his thoughts suddenly turned into hard words. "I don’t think that you’re taking our relationship seriously," he blurted.
 
Where had this bomb dropped from?
 
"It's been bothering me for a while," he pressed.
 
"I do take it seriously,” she defensively replied. “Why don’t you say I’m not?”

“Because you never let us talk about important things.

“We talk about everything!"

“But never about important things."

“Like what?”

“Like, you never said mentioned what kind of guy you’d most like to marry?”

“Wow, that’s a heavy subject! I won't be eighteen before next month and I’m living with my mother. Why should I be talking about husbands when I'm still in high school? It was hard for Josette to even to pretend to want a husband.

“So, where is our relationship going? Is it even an actual relationship?”

Josette shrugged. Isn't a relationship having a good time and going out on dates? Lately I've noticed you've been looking sour when you should be smiling.”

“I've got a lot on my mind. I'm worrying that maybe we're on our way to a break up."

“’Whoa! Who's talking about breaking up? If we’re good together, why do we have to break up?”

“If two people aren’t aren't going in the same direction, a break up is just down the road.”

“I thought I understood guys, but I sure don't understand anything you're saying now,” Josette said.

“I don’t think you get it how strongly I feel about you, Josette. And the vibes you give off don't make me think you have any powerful feelings aimed my way.”

“Relationships are evolving things. I have strong feelings about you, even if they aren’t romantic. Why talk about marriage? Almost every marriage is a failure. Your parents are good together, but mine weren't. In fact, it seems like people seem great together, but suddenly want a divorce a year after they get married. Please, Darrell. Enjoy what we have and do be so anxious to open the next prize box.”

“We haven’t even kissed yet.”

“So what's the big deal about kissing? If two people are out of sinc, a kiss can be misunderstood. And misunderstandings can ruin everything.”

“It's been looking to me that you've putting me into the 'friend zone.' No guy like that, because girls never treat friend-zone guys seriously.”

“Don’t get mad! If you start hating on me, you're leave my whole life empty. We make such perfect friends. Why isn’t being friends enough?”

“I've told you why not!”

Josette's look came back hard. “If I’m not right for you, is there somebody you like better?”

“I've never said you weren't right for me! I keep on hoping that you are!”

“Listen to yourself! What do you want from me?”

“Why having you don't anything sweet and spontaneous, like giving me a surprise kiss on the lips?”

“Friends don't have to kiss. If they do, that could even be creepy! Josette stopped abruptly. She was getting into very dangerous territory.

“Buy you're thinking of boy friends and girl friends. Girls and boys who go together and really care for one another treat one another differently!”

“Be reasonable! We’ve only known each other for less than three months. I don’t want to rush things?”

“Rush things? If you were racing with tortoises, you’d lose every race!”

"Why are you so adamant about kissing me?”

“Do you seriously not know?” Darrell asked impatiently.
 
"Cross my heart, I don't,” she replied. 

“You’re manipulating me, acting like I’m bullying you!”

“I’m just saying we shouldn't change something that is still brand new. A kiss is a big deal, and it would change things. Changes are sometimes for the worse.”

“Some changes are for the better. But I want a better and deeper relationship with you, and I the longer I have to wait, the more I think that we want different things.”

She felt like grabbing and shaking him. She knew damned well that he'd never had a chance to hang with a good-looking girl before he'd met Josette. Why couldn't Darrell be satisfied being seen around with one of the cute chicks at Westbrook High? Why was it that two guys could remain best friends for years, yet even the best guy-girl relationships rarely extended beyond a few weeks?

“You've lain a lot on my platter. I need time to contemplate this," Josette replied. "If we keep talking about this, one of us might say something wrong, and it could become hard for us to fix things afterwards.”

“Maybe you’re right. But we need to have a serious discussion soon.”

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Josette. “I’ve got an idea that might fix this gnarly little problem we're having. I’ll tell you about it soon, I promise.”

“That depends on when your idea is,” said Darrell.

“Don’t worry,” Josette replied. “It will be about the biggest and most surprising thing that's ever happened to you.

“Is it something that I’m going to like?”

“There’s a chance of that. Let’s just wait and see. I’ll tell you Friday night, after school.”

“What’s so special about Friday night?” Darrell asked.

Josette fibbed. There was something special about Friday night, but she didn't dare explain what it was.

THE END

To continue with the adventures of Josette and Darrell, see “The Dark of the Moon,” already posted here at TFTGS, https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/51751/dark-moon-sock-...