“I can’t believe I’m advising women not to take their clothes off,” Randall said, “but I think you should be careful.”
“Um, Taka — could you turn your back while I change into my bathrobe? This doesn’t really fit me very well.”
“Um, yeah, okay.” He blushed and turned around. I shimmied out of Scott’s clothes and put on his bathrobe. “There, all done.” I relished the look on his face when he turned around. “You can borrow Randall’s bathrobe. I know he washed it just a few days ago.”
“Um, thanks... you sure he won’t mind?”
“Sure!” I took another sip. “I’ll just turn my back here.”
A few moments later, he said, “Okay, I’m done.”
I turned around. “So what do you want to do until Cynthia and Randall get back?”
He blushed again, and looked away from me. “Well, um — you said you wanted to measure our bodies, right? So we could get clothes that fit? I’ve, um, got a tape measure in my room. Darrell’s room. I could go get it.”
“Sure, that would be great! I’ll come with.”
He said, “Um, I don’t think that would be a good idea. You know, a girl in a bathrobe on our hall... you’d probably better stay in your room so nobody sees you.”
“Oh, good point. See you in a few.”
While he was gone I dug through the stuff under my bed and pulled out a deck of cards and a couple of board games. I turned on the radio and fiddled with the tuning knob. After a couple of boring announcers' voices I heard “Humphrey the Camel” by Jack Blanchard and Misty Morgan.
“Ooh, I love this song.” Scott thought it was stupid, but I loved it. “Down at the oasis, the Arabs are pickin' their dates —” I sang along while I shuffled the cards. I was still singing when Takahiro got back.
“Um, here’s the measuring tape,” he said. “It’s a metal carpenter’s measure, not a cloth measure like you normally use for people, but I think it’ll work.”
“Thanks!” I put down the cards. “You want me to measure you first?”
“Uh, no thanks, I guess I’ll get Randall to do it when he gets back. And, uh, you and Cynthia can do each other.” He blushed when he realized what he’d said. I giggled and rolled with it.
“Sure, you can watch while we do each other. But if you want to do me I don’t mind.”
He mumbled something inaudible.
“What’s that...? I meant you could measure me. What did you think I meant?”
“If you really want me to.”
“If we’ve already gotten measured when Cynthia and Randall get back, we can start playing games sooner.”
“All right... uh, how do you want me to do this?”
I guided his hands as he wrapped the tape around me at chest, waist, and hips, and then did the vertical measurements, and wrote them all down.
When I offered to measure him, he averted his eyes and said, “I don’t think there’s any point. Darrell’s not gonna take jekyllase again. He’d hate being me.”
“You just have to show him what’s good about being you,” I urged. “What’s something you enjoy that Darrell doesn’t — that he can’t enjoy without becoming you? Something you’re good at that he can’t do?”
“I’m great at pinball,” he said. “Darrell’s terrible at it.”
Somehow I didn’t doubt that he was right, that he knew he would be great at pinball even though he’d never played it. I knew similar things about myself, things Scott had never learned, or at least hadn’t consciously paid attention to. There were plenty of other things I’d have to learn, of course, and I looked forward to that.
“There you go! If he doesn’t use these measurements to buy you some clothes, and let you out again, he’ll never have the satisfaction of seeing you wipe the floor with the guys who look down on him because he sucks at pinball.”
He met my eyes again, and smiled. “All right.”
I took his measurements. By the time I got to his inseam, he was erect, and tenting out his bathrobe. I was tempted to brush against his boy parts when I measured his inseam, but I tried not to. He twitched anyway.
“There we go,” I said, writing down the measurements. “Now what do you want to do while we wait for them to get back?”
He eyed the games on my desk. “We could play speed chess,” he said. “Or a card game.”
“Speed chess sounds fine,” I said, though I didn’t think I’d be that great at it. He would, I was pretty sure, and he looked like he needed a confidence boost.
We didn’t have a proper speed chess timer, but I took off Scott’s watch (which didn’t suit my arm as well as his) and set it on the desk next to the chessboard where we could watch the second hand. Every time I lost a piece, I loosened my robe a little. When he realized what I was doing, he blushed fiercely and tried harder to keep his eyes on the chessboard. He was so adorable.
He won the first game easily, and we were just a few moves into the second when Cynthia and Randall got back. My bathrobe was open almost to my belly-button.
“You two have been busy,” Cynthia said, raising her eyebrows, and Randall frowned and said, “Did you tell him he could wear my bathrobe?”
“Sorry,” I said unrepentantly. “His need was greater than yours. You saw how Darrell’s pants fit him. And he got us a tape measure,” I added. “You want me to measure you, Cynthia?”
“Sure, though I’m still doubtful that Emily will let me out again. It can’t hurt to be prepared, though.”
“You’ve got confidence and a great body. Emily will probably enjoy that, and she’ll want to be able to show it off to more advantage next time.”
“Possibly so.”
I measured her and wrote down the measurements on an index card. She was staring at my breasts while I measured hers. Mine were bigger than hers, but hers looked more impressive on her leaner frame. That done, she opened the bottle of Merlot she’d bought (she’d bought a corkscrew too, as neither Randall nor I owned one), and handed Takahiro the Sapporo he’d requested.
“Do you mind if I change the station?” she asked.
“Sure, go ahead!” I said. She switched to one of the local rock stations.
“We could quit this game and play something else,” Takahiro said, opening the bottle. “Something for four players.”
“We could play poker,” I suggested.
“Strip poker,” Cynthia amended.
“No fair!” Takahiro protested. “Jennifer and me are only wearing one or two garments apiece. One lost hand and we’d be out.”
“I can’t believe I’m advising women not to take their clothes off,” Randall said, “but I think you should be careful. Don’t gamble away too much of your jekylls' money or embarrass them too much, or they might not want to take jekyllase and let you out again.”
In the end we decided on bridge, which all of us except for Cynthia knew. Cynthia was my partner, and picked up on the rules pretty quickly when we explained them to her, so we didn’t do too badly though we still lost. Next game we shuffled partners and I was with Takahiro; we won, but by a smaller margin than Randall and Takahiro had won the last game.
By then it was one o’clock. We were all drunk, except maybe Takahiro, who’d only had half a bottle of Sapporo, and Randall was high. Cynthia didn’t toke, it turned out, and Takahiro got sick on the first toke and didn’t want to try again. I wasn’t sure I wanted to try it after the way I’d reacted to tobacco, though I remembered liking the way Scott felt when he smoked pot.
“We should go for a walk or something before we change back,” I said. “At least around the halls of the dorm.”
“Sure,” Randall said. “You can go outside, too. I’ll protect you.” He giggled, and it was infectious enough to get me started too.
Cynthia looked down her nose at us. “You’re being foolish,” she said. “But I suppose the more of us there are, the less likely someone is to bother us.”
“Let’s go, then,” I said, and got up. I wobbled a little and plopped right back down.
“You’re too drunk to go anywhere,” Cynthia observed.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, and got up again, staying up this time. “C’mon.”
I went for the door, and Randall put his hand on my arm to steady me. Cynthia and Takahiro followed us out the door into the hall. I leaned against Randall for a moment as my head felt a little more spinny than usual, and noticed that Takahiro was looking jealous. I felt bad for him. “Hey, maybe I should lean on Taka. You’re not too steady yourself, Randall.”
“I’m your chaperone, though. You’ve known me for months, you’ve known him for a few hours. Who’re you gonna trust?”
“I like Taka,” I objected. “You’re nice too. Well, not nice, but fun to be with. But Taka’s nice too.” Randall just grinned and kept hold of my arm.
We walked down the hall past the bathroom and vending machines to the stairs, and past them around the other two halls (our dorm was in a U-shape), back again to the stairs, and down to the ground floor. All the while Randall stayed close to me, sometimes holding onto me, sometimes just ready to grab me if I wobbled too much.
“Let’s go outside,” I said eagerly when we came to the side door.
“No,” Cynthia said firmly, and Randall agreed.
“'S’not a good idea, the way you’re dressed,” he said. “Next time, when you’ve got clothes that fit you.”
“But what if Scott doesn’t let me out again?” I pouted. “C’mon, just for a few minutes. I wanna look at the stars.”
“Oh, all right,” Randall said, but Cynthia again said “No,” and took my hand. “You’re going right back to your room.”
“You only live once,” I said. “Hey, that might be literally true for us, right?”
“It’s not literally true for anybody,” Taka said. “But yeah, let’s go out. Darrell’s not gonna want to be me again unless I show him I’m not a coward.”
“Yeah! Let’s go!” I jerked my hand out of Cynthia’s and followed Taka out the door.
It was dark; either the moon had already set or it was a new moon, or whatever. I was no astronomer either as Scott or Jennifer. We couldn’t see the stars as well as you could out in the wilderness, but better in our small college town than in the city Scott grew up in. I looked up and wondered aloud which constellation was which. Cynthia identified several of them for us, which prompted me to ask: “Does Emily know that stuff too?”
“Emily learned it in Girl Scouts and forgot it. But I remember.”
“Far out. Hey, let’s lie down on the grass. I’m getting a crick in my neck from looking up.”
“Emily won’t let me out again if I ruin her nice blouse and skirt with grass stains,” Cynthia said. “You go ahead.”
“Yeah, Scott won’t care about grass stains on this old thing,” I said, and plopped down. Taka looked at Randall for permission and he shrugged; then Taka laid down next to me. I took his hand in mine and pressed it.
“This is great,” I said. “Scott and Darrell have got to let us out again, they’ve never looked at the stars like this.”
“They look so much grander when you know you’ll only ever see them once,” Taka said sadly.
I felt terrible for him. He was almost certainly right. Amazing pinball skills or not, Darrell wasn’t going to take jekyllase again.
And Scott probably wasn’t going to let me out again. He’d probably be too embarrassed about turning into a girl. My only chance was to show him something, to make him feel something, he couldn’t feel as a man. And even that might backfire if I went too far.
Furthermore, there were only two guys available. Randall was by far the hotter of the two, but he wasn’t as nice a guy as Taka. And Scott was more likely to forgive me for starting something with a hyde who’d probably never exist again than for making things awkward between him and his roommate.
If we were both jekylls and didn’t have a deadline, I’d take things slow with Taka. Hint that I liked him until he worked up the nerve to ask me out, and so forth. But we were hydes, and we’d probably never live again. I turned, leaned over, and kissed him. He was too surprised to react for a moment, and then he kissed back. I darted my tongue into his mouth, and after a few moments he did the same... then he worked up the nerve to run his hand along my arm, and then my shoulder and neck...
“Cut it out, lovebirds,” Cynthia said in a low voice. “Campus cops.”
But it was too late. By the time Taka and I scrambled to our feet, the cop’s flashlight was on us. Randall was way ahead of us, already opening the door, but the cop said: “You’re out way after curfew... Wait a minute. You girls don’t need to be going in the boys' dorm. Where do you live?”
“Utterson Hall,” Cynthia said. “Come on, Jennifer, let’s get you to bed.”
“I’ll escort you there,” the cop said. “Boys, is this your dorm?”
“Yes, sir,” Randall said. “Come on, Taka.” He met my eyes and shrugged helplessly. “See you tomorrow, girls,” he said.
“Yeah, right,” Cynthia muttered under her breath.
So we trudged after the cop toward Utterson Hall. I was less drunk than I’d been half an hour earlier, steady enough on my feet that the cop didn’t seem to suspect I was under the influence. I felt a pang of loss and a spike of resentment. Taka and I had so little time, and this busybody cop had to cut even that little short...! I swore at him under my breath, but he had good hearing.
“I can’t believe the language I’m hearing from young ladies these days,” the cop said. “My daughter doesn’t talk like that.”
“Not where you can hear her,” I said.
“She’s a good girl, not like you tramps. Honestly, wandering over to the boys' dorm in the middle of the night in your bathrobe...! Unless that’s your boyfriend’s bathrobe.”
“Don’t answer him,” Cynthia advised me, and I was just sober enough to mind her.
The cop watched us until we went into Cynthia’s — or rather Emily’s — dorm, and then walked off.
“What are we going to do?” I whispered once we were inside.
“You could try to sneak back over to Scott and Randall’s room,” she said. “Or you could sleep on my roommate’s bed. She went home for the weekend for her dad’s birthday.”
“Oh, that’s fine. Thanks.”
“Sorry you and Taka got interrupted.”
“So am I,” I said.
We crashed as soon as we got into the room, but it took me a while to get to sleep.
I have several books in the Secret Trans Writing Lair's Pride Month bundle. Note that unlike previous open-ended bundles, this is only available through the end of June.
Sorry this chapter is a late. I've been very sick, but I'm a fair bit better.
